UC-NRLF 


SB    EE    IT? • 

L  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHV 

No.  12 


SOME  MODERN 
CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW 


PRESENTED  i  o  TH] 

Co]  '•  • 

i'HILOSOPHY 


LANCASTER,  PA.,  AND  NEW  YORK 

LONGMANS,  GREEN   &  COMPANY 

1920 


EXCHANGE 


CORNELL  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 
No.  12 


SOME  MODERN 
CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW 


MARIE  T.  COLLINS,  A.M. 


A  THESIS 

PRESENTED  TO  THE  FACULTY  OF  THE  GRADUATE  SCHOOL  OF 

CORNELL  UNIVERSITY  FOR  THE  DEGREE  OF 

DOCTOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


LANCASTER,  PA.  ,  AND  NEW  YORK 

LONGMANS,  GREEN  &  COMPANY 

1920 


PRESS  OF 

THE  NEW  ERA  PRINTING  COMPANY 
LANCASTER,  PA. 


EXCHANGE 


PREFACE. 

The  present  study  examines  the  conception  of  a  'law  of 
nature'  as  interpreted  by  certain  recent  philosophical  systems. 
These  interpretations  are  considered  as  broadly  divisible  into  two 
types,  here  termed  for  convenience,  the  psychological  and  the 
logical.  Some  such  distinction  is  found  inevitable  in  dealing 
with  the  various  contemporary  systems  commonly  referred  under 
the  name  idealism.  Writers  like  James  Ward,  Josiah  Royce  and 
A.  E.  Taylor  fall  naturally  into  one  group,  as  representing  a 
tendency  toward  psychological  idealism.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  are  thinkers — of  whom  Bernard  Bosanquet  is  perhaps  the 
chief — who  favor  instead  objective  idealism  of  a  more  logical  type. 

The  task  of  separating  out  the  respective  interpretations  of 
nature  and  natural  law  from  these  two  general  types  of  idealism 
has  not  been  an  easy  one ;  nor  has  it  been  easy  to  estimate  fairly 
the  comparative  adequacy  and  depth  of  the  two  positions.  But 
the  need  for  a  sound  valuation  of  nature,  one  in  harmony  with 
the  logic  of  experience,  is  so  crucial  for  philosophy  that  it  is  es- 
sential that  an  attempt  should  be  made  to  compare  critically  the 
divergent  results  obtained  by  thinkers  who  are  usually  grouped 
together  under  a  common  name. 

In  the  nature  of  the  case,  the  study  has  suffered  somewhat 
through  an  embarrassment  of  riches  in  the  material.  Not  only 
has  it  not  been  possible,  within  the  limits  of  the  present  mono- 
graph, to  discuss  in  their  full  scope  the  systems  dealt  with,  but 
it  has  also  been  necessary  to  omit  from  consideration  the  views 
of  certain  other  writers  which  might  well  have  been  included  if 
one  were  aiming  at  completeness.  I  think,  however,  that  the 
representatives  I  have  chosen  on  either  side  may  fairly  be  re- 
garded as  typical.  Furthermore,  it  is  perhaps  necessary  to  re- 
mark that  it  has  been  thought  advisable  to  anticipate  from  the 
first  the  general  standpoint  of  the  study,  instead  of  waiting  for  it 
to  emerge  gradually  as  a  conclusion  from  the  facts  themselves. 


A  O  '-  .  ^  r\ 


iv  PREFACE. 

Open-mindedness  is  not,  I  hope,  incompatible  with  a  willingness 
to  take  sides  and  to  venture  some  opinion.  I  have  tried  to  pre- 
sent fairly  the  views  from  which  I  differ,  and  I  trust  that  the 
summary  form  in  which  I  have  been  here  compelled  to  express 
this  disagreement  may  not  be  mistaken  for  dogmatism. 

Part  I  contains  a  critical  exposition  of  the  psychological  method 
of  explaining  laws  of  nature.  Part  II  is  devoted  to  an  account 
of  the  logical  method  of  interpreting  natural  law.  Part  III  gives 
a  critical  comparison  of  the  psychological  and  logical  inter- 
pretations. 

In  conclusion,  I  desire  to  express  my  obligations  and  most  sin- 
cere thanks  to  Professor  J.  E.  Creighton,  under  whose  direction 
the  study  was  carried  on,  for  very  valuable  suggestions  and  criti- 
cisms. For  a  careful  reading  of  the  whole,  I  am  grateful  to  Dr. 
Katherine  E.  Gilbert  and  to  Professor  Ernest  Albee. 


SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL 

LAW 


PART  I. 

PAGES 
THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  INTERPRETATION  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

CHAPTER    I:  The  General  Presupposition  of  a  Psycho- 
logical Interpretation    1-23 

CHAPTER  II:  The  Panpsychical  Conception  of  Natural 

Law    24-45 

PART  II. 

THE  LOGICAL  INTERPRETATION  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

CHAPTER    I:  The  Concrete  Universal  as  the  Principle 

of  Law   46-64 

CHAPTER  II :  Equivalence  and  Natural  Law   65-83 

PART  III. 

CONCLUSION     84-103 


PART  I. 

THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  INTERPRETATION  OF 
NATURAL  LAW. 

CHAPTER  I :  THE  GENERAL  PRESUPPOSITION  OF  A  PSYCHOLOGICAL 
INTERPRETATION. 

It  is  generally  recognized  that  recent  idealism  maintains  on  the 
whole  the  classical  traditions  in  philosophy.  As  idealism,  it  op- 
poses all  forms  of  naturalism  based  on  the  standpoint  and  methods 
of  the  special  sciences,  while  at  the  same  time  welcoming  the  great 
discoveries  of  science  and  revising  its  view  of  the  world-order  in 
the  light  of  these.  In  particular,  it  preserves  the  tradition  that 
the  realm  of  values  must  be  regarded  not  only  as  objective,  but  as 
central  for  any  valid  theory  of  reality.  Yet  in  spite  of  a  funda- 
mental agreement  of  aim,  there  has  been  a  gradual  differentiation 
of  methods  in  recent  idealism,  which  calls  for  critical  examination. 

Without  attempting  to  deal  in  detail  with  the  individual  systems, 
it  seems  possible  to  distinguish  two  main  tendencies  in  modern 
idealism.1  The  one  type  derives  its  chief  inspiration  apparently 
from  Locke,  Berkeley,  Hume  and  their  successors;  the  other 
shows  its  closest  affiliations  with  the  classical  systems  of  Kant 
and  Hegel.  The  points  of  view  represented  by  these  two  diverg- 
ing methods  are  termed  in  this  study  the  psychological  and  the 
logical.  It  cannot  be  too  clearly  emphasized  that  the  psycholog- 
ical standpoint  as  referred  to  in  this  discussion  has  nothing  to  do 
with  the  question  regarding  the  standpoint  of  psychology  as  a 
science.  The  term  is  here  used  to  indicate  a  point  of  view  in 
contemporary  philosophy  which  seems  to  have  its  source  in  the 
introspective  and  analytic  method  of  British  empiricism.  Such 
a  standpoint  is  called  psychological  because  it  assumes  a  content 
of  consciousness  in  the  form  of  mental  states  as  the  primary  and 

iC/.  J.  E.  Creighton,  "Two  Types  of  Idealism,"  Philosophical  Review, 
Vol.  XXVI,  pp.  514-536. 


CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

immediate  object  of  knowledge.  It  is  also  to  be  noted  that  the 
logical  standpoint,  as  here  referred  to,  is  not  that  of  formal  logic. 
It  is  rather  that  of  a  concrete  logic  which  finds  truth  as  something 
objective  in  the  real  world  and  evidenced  by  the  value  and  stabil- 
ity of  concrete  wholes. 

This  broad  difference  of  type  in  modern  idealism,  however,  is 
not  the  problem  before  us.  For  the  present  it  is  proposed  to  di- 
rect attention  to  one  important  consequence  of  this  divergence  as 
expressed  in  conflicting  interpretations  of  natural  law.  Our  task 
is  to  set  forth  and  compare  the  particular  theories  of  natural  law 
implied  respectively  in  these  two  general  views.  But  although 
only  a  special  problem,  the  question  of  natural  law  is  in  a  sense 
central  and  determining,  since  it  involves  the  evaluation  of  the 
whole  objective  world, — the  solution  of  which  question  may  well 
serve  as  the  test  of  all  sound  philosophy. 

Without  further  preliminary,  our  exposition  of  the  psycholog- 
ical interpretation  may  begin.2  A  view  of  the  world  based  upon 
the  postulate  that  mental  states  are  the  primary  objects  of  knowl- 
edge and  which  deduces  the  external  world  from  these  states,  is 
often  called  idealism.  As  Edward  Caird  has  pointed  out,3  the 
doctrine  that '  all  reality  is  spirit '  has  frequently  been  interpreted 
to  mean  that  reality  consists  solely  of  subjects  and  their  mental 
states.  Undoubtedly  the  doctrine  that  the  field  of  inner  con- 
sciousness furnishes  the  immediate  criterion  of  knowledge  finds 
strong  support  in  modern  philosophy.  It  seems  to  have  grown 
up  chiefly  through  the  systems  of  Descartes,  Locke,  Berkeley  and 
Hume.  The  easy  translation  of  the  Cogito  ergo  sum  into  sub- 
jective certainty,  Locke's  limitation  of  knowledge  to  ideas,  Berke- 
ley's Esse  est  percipi,  and  Hume's  phenomenalism,  are  the  plain 

2  James  Ward  and  Josiah  Royce  are  here  taken  as  the  most  important 
recent  exponents  of  this  point  of  view.  A.  E.  Taylor  has  also  given  a  clear, 
succinct  defence  of  the  same  general  position ;  his  main  ideas,  however,  seem 
largely  derived  from  the  foregoing  writers.  Some  mention  is  made  of  C.  S. 
Peirce,  both  on  account  of  his  influence  upon  the  thought  of  Royce  and  for 
the  striking,  though  less  known,  formulation  he  gives  to  certain  aspects  of  this 
interpretation. 

»E.  Caird,  Proceedings  of  the  British  Academy,  1903-1904,  p.  91.     Cf.  p.  95. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  INTERPRETATION.  3 

steps  toward  establishing  the  fashion  of  interpreting  the  universe 
in  terms  of  subjective  states.  Even  in  Kant,  there  are  many  pas- 
sages that  seem  to  limit  man's  world  to  his  mental  states,  though 
the  concepts  of  'consciousness  in  general'  and  of  the  'thing-in- 
itself '  always  remain  as  barriers  against  complete  subjectivism. 
Perhaps  it  is  Leibniz  who  may  be  said  to  have  carried  this  stand- 
point to  its  logical  conclusion  by  interpreting  the  universe  as  a 
collection  of  conscious  spirits,  each  a  miniature  of  the  cosmic 
drama. 

Already  it  will  be  seen  that  a  view  of  the  world  based  on  mental 
states  as  the  primary  objects  of  knowledge  must  put  off  the  prob- 
lem of  nature  as  secondary  and  derivative.  If  our  conscious 
states  are  our  sole  immediate  objects,  nature  and  natural  law  can 
be  accounted  for  only  as  constructions  built  on  the  presentations 
of  consciousness.  Accordingly,  we  must  be  patient  and  approach 
the  problem  of  nature  and  natural  law  through  studying  the  gen- 
eral presuppositions  of  the  psychological  standpoint  as  a  whole. 
Only  through  the  study  of  the  world  of  inner  consciousness  will 
the  particular  problem  of  nature  and  its  laws  finally  emerge  as 
secondary  and  derivative  from  the  problem  of  consciousness. 

Recurring  to  the  historical  facts  cited  above,  the  question 
arises  whether  there  is  justification  for  calling  'psychological'  a 
certain  modern  attitude  toward  the  world  based  on  this  tradition. 
The  right  to  do  so  is  here  assumed,  not  merely  for  the  reason  that 
these  modern  thinkers  finally  reduce  the  world  to  subjects  and 
their  mental  states,  but  because  their  standpoint  is  initially 
grounded  upon  the  acceptance  of  the  immediate  data  of  conscious- 
ness as  ultimate.  But  in  assuming  this  right,  protests  must  un- 
doubtedly be  faced  from  the  very  persons  who  hold  the  psycho- 
logical standpoint.  For  to  call  a  point  of  view  psychological  is 
to  imply  that  it  is  subjectivistic.4  And  the  charge  of  subjective 
idealism  is  one  which  modern  thinkers  appear  no  less  eager  than 
Kant  to  repudiate.  Like  Kant,  they  are  greatly  concerned  to 
distinguish  their  position  from  that  of  '  the  good  Berkeley/  Pro- 

*  Even  Behaviourism  in  psychology,  it  might  be  maintained,  implies  a  sub- 
jective standpoint;  the  very  name  suggests  an  'inner'  of  which  behaviour  is 
only  the  '  outer  '  manifestation. 


4      SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

fessor  Taylor,  for  instance,  would  certainly  deny  that  his  stand- 
point was  psychological  in  a  subjective  sense,  or  that  he  accepted 
the  distinctions  of  psychology  as  ultimately  real.  Indeed,  the 
whole  viewpoint  of  the  science  of  psychology  appears  to  him  a 
false  abstraction  built  upon  a  process  of  subjective  introjection.5 
He  explicitly  denies  subjectivism  for  himself ;  and  regards  Ward 
and  Royce  as  also  free  of  the  imputation.6  He  thinks,  apparently, 
that  he  frees  himself  from  the  charge  of  subjectivism  and  psy- 
chologism  by  refusing  to  define  experience  in  terms  of  subjects  and 
their  conscious  states,  and  by  going  on  instead  to  identify  reality 
with  "psychical  facts  which  somehow  form  a  systematic  unity," 
a  doctrine  based  perhaps  upon  that  of  Kant.  But  the  question 
remains  whether,  on  his  own  presupposition,  this  very  statement 
does  not  still  confine  him  within  the  very  point  of  view  he  has  re- 
pudiated. For  he  has  frankly  avowed  that  our  distinction  between 
the  'psychical'  and  'physical'  orders  appears  built  on  subjective 
introjection,7 — a  psychological  process.  Hence  in  identifying 
reality  with  psychical  fact,  Taylor  apparently  takes  his  stand  upon 
a  mere  psychological  distinction  as  ultimate,  and  by  the  logic  of 
his  own  position  is  carried  back  to  the  psychological  and  subjective 
viewpoint. 

Ward  is  psychological  in  the  same  sense.  The  basis  of  his 
position  is  no  less  a  distinction  within  the  field  of  inner  conscious- 
ness taken  as  ontologically  real.  Earlier  than  Taylor  he  had  ac- 
cepted introjection  as  a  chief  ground  of  the  dualism  between  the 
psychical  and  physical  worlds.8  He  had,  in  fact,  unambiguously 
adopted  a  subjectivistic  standpoint  in  undertaking  to  show  that 
all  intersubjective  intercourse  is  an  extension  of  individual  ex- 
perience.9 His  metaphysical  doctrine  of  a  world  composed  of 
"  self -determining,  free  agents  "  has  its  roots  then  in  a  distinction 
discovered  by  genetic  psychology.  For  him  the  world  is  at  bottom 
an  aggregate  of  psychological,  subjective  egos,  "a  plurality  of 

5  A.  E.  Taylor,  Elements  of  Metaphysics,  p.  300. 

6  Ibid.,  p.  75,  footnote  2. 

7  Ibid.     Cf.  the  entire  chapter  on  "  The  Logical  Character  of  Psychological 
Science." 

8  J.  Ward,  Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,  3rd  ed.,  Vol.  II,  p.  171  ff. 

9  Ibid.,  Lecture  XVI,  chapter  outline. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  INTERPRETATION.  5 

conative  beings  at  first  casually  interacting  in  pursuance  of  their 
several  particular  and  immediate  impulses  [that]  gradually  come 
to  have  ends  and  continually  widening  ends  in  common."10 

Royce  also  accepts  psychological  data  as  basic  for  metaphysics. 
He  defines  being  in  terms  of  mental  states,  as  "  the  complete  in- 
ternal meaning  of  a  certain  absolute  system  of  ideas  "  j11  and  the 
very  notion  of  consciousness  (as  opposed  to  the  physical  order) 
he  traces  to  its  origin  in  terms  of  genetic  psychology.  According 
to  his  genetic  account,  the  self  and  the  external  world  get  dif- 
ferentiated through  the  development  of  the  social  consciousness. 
The  child  comes  to  distinguish  himself  from  others  and  from  the 
physical  world  through  imitation  of  the  persons  about  him.12 
Social  opposition,  the  desire  to  contrast  himself  with  others,  ap- 
pears early  as  another  factor  in  social  consciousness.13  Gradually 
the  concept  of  nature  arises  as  secondary  and  derived  from  the 
social,  personal  relations.14  By  analysis  of  such  data  from  on- 
togenetic  psychology,  Royce  satisfies  himself  that  the  distinction 
between  the  self  and  the  external  world  rests  on  the  psychological 
fact  of  social  consciousness.  He  diverges  somewhat  from  Ward 
and  Taylor  in  refusing  to  recognize  individual  experience  as 
genetically  prior  to  social  experience,  and  also  in  seeming  to  ac- 
cept the  standpoint  of  the  science  of  psychology  as  real  and 
concrete. 

In  classifying  these  thinkers  under  the  term  psychological,  then, 
the  purpose  has  been  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  they  accept 
the  data  and  distinctions  of  immediate  consciousness  as  ontolog- 
ical;  that  they  offer  analyses  descriptive  of  the  growth  of  indi- 
vidual and  racial  consciousness  as  bona  fide  explanations  of  the 
fundamental  constitution  of  reality.  They  are  psychological,  in 
that  they  define  reality  with  reference  to  the  subject  and  not  the 
object  of  experience.  They  tend  to  accept  subjects  and  their  con- 
scious states  as  final,  given  data,  and  to  reduce  the  world  to  terms 
of  these.  Indeed,  they  hold  Berkeley  to  have  raised  to  the  status 

10  J.  Ward,  The  Realm  of  Ends,  p.  148. 

11  J.  Royce,  The  World  and  the  Individual,  ist  ser.,  p.  36. 

12  Royce,  Philosophical  Review,  Vol.  IV,  pp.  484-5,  577  ff. 
is  Royce,  Outline  of  Psychology,  p.  277  ff. 

i*  Royce,  Philosophical  Review,  Vol.  IV,  p.  470 


6     SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

of  a  metaphysical  truth  the  psychological  analysis  of  objects  as 
modifications  of  consciousness.  Berkeley's  great  service  to  ideal- 
ism, from  this  point  of  view,  consisted  in  showing  that  the  real  is 
essentially  defined  by  its  relation  to  a  conscious  subject ;  that,  in 
fact,  this  is  what  determines  the  nature  of  the  real.  Reality  is 
therefore  mental,  and  made  up  of  the  experience  of  conscious 
percipients. 

But  while  acknowledging  the  debt  of  idealism  to  Berkeley,  these 
thinkers  emphasize  their  improvement  upon  Berkeley  in  two  im- 
portant respects.  First,  experience  for  Berkeley  was  too  largely 
an  affair  of  passive  perception.  According  to  his  theory,  finite 
minds  seemed  to  have  little  to  do  with  the  ordering  of  their  ideas. 
Undeniably  his  thought  had  a  presentational  and  phenomenalistic 
turn.  They  would  correct  Berkeley  by  giving  an  adequate  ac- 
count of  the  purposive  side  of  experience.  Consciousness  is 
purposive,  and  the  ordering  of  our  experience,  therefore,  deter- 
mined throughout  by  subjective  interests  and  selection.  Second, 
Berkeley's  view  tended  to  the  isolation  of  the  ego  in  its  conscious 
states.  If  logically  followed  out,  the  existence  of  a  world  outside 
the  moments  of  the  ego  would  become  wholly  gratuitous.  In 
other  words,  such  subjectivism  as  is  implied  in  Berkeley's  view 
would  lead  to  solipsism  or  scepticism.15  Here  these  idealists 
appeal  from  Berkeley's  description  of  consciousness,  and  affirm 
that  consciousness  is  not  merely  individualistic  in  its  nature  but 
is  essentially  social.  They  call  attention  once  more  to  the  facts 
of  purpose  and  selection.  These,  they  hold,  imply  the  ego's  union 
with  an  external  world.  Yet  by  itself,  such  evidence  would  be 
admittedly  insufficient.  The  escape  from  individualistic  sub- 
jectivism or  solipsism  comes  through  my  certainty  of  other  selves. 
For  I  have  in  my  consciousness  certain  objects  that  have  their 
reality  not  merely  through  being  perceived,  but  in  being  them- 
selves active  '  centres  of  experience.'  I  recognize  them  as  inde- 
pendent centres  because  they  prove  for  me  veritable  '  dynamos '  of 
new  ideas.  It  is  the  certainty  of  my  fellow  men  and  of  my  inter- 
is  J.  Ward,  Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,  3rd  ed.,  Vol.  II,  p.  289.  "  If  ex- 
perience were  throughout  subjective  ...  it  ...  could  not  be  called  even 
solipsism,  least  of  all  real  experience." 


PSYCHOLOGICAL   INTERPRETATION.  7 

course  with  them  that  makes  solipsism  impossible.  Taylor  gives 
the  frankest  statement  of  this  mode  of  escape,  by  which  such 
idealism  seeks  to  evade  the  charges  of  Berkeleian  subjectivism 
and  solipsism.  In  his  words,  "it  is  this  real  existence  of  our 
fellows  which  makes  solipsism  an  impossible  philosophical  theory. 
Apart  from  the  problem  they  create  there  would,  as  far  as  I  can 
see,  be  no  difficulty  in  supposing  myself  the  sole  abiding  reality 
in  the  universe,  of  which  every  thing  else  would  be  a  mere  tem- 
porary state."16 

In  brief,  while  this  type  of  thinking  would  repudiate  a  descrip- 
tion of  consciousness  in  terms  of  the  presentational  and  individ- 
ualistic psychology  implied  in  Berkeley17  and  the  British  empiri- 
cists, it  would  take  its  stand  upon  what  it  regards  as  a  dynamic 
and  social  psychological  position,  in  which  conation  and  the  cer- 
tainty of  our  fellows  were  the  fundamental  facts.  This  raises  the 
question  whether  the  writers  here  dealt  with  have  genuinely  got 
free  from  the  old  view,  as  they  claim,  to  a  truly  dynamic  and  social 
conception.  If  they  have  not,  their  standpoint  remains  psycho- 
logical in  essentially  the  same  sense  as  Berkeley's,  and  involves  a 
definition  of  the  real  in  terms  of  subjects  without  reference  to  the 
object  of  experience.  That  these  writers  have  not  escaped  the 
old  presentative  and  individualistic  conceptions  appears  con- 
clusive. The  reasons  for  this  conclusion  may  be  discussed  under 
four  heads : 

First,  their  position  is  fundamentally  grounded  in  perception. 
This  follows  from  the  fact  that  they  view  the  world  from  the 
standpoint  of  subjects  confined  to  their  mental  states  for  their 
immediate  experience.  The  criterion  of  knowledge  is  perception, 
taking  perception  in  the  broad  sense  of  Vorstellung,  presentation 
to  consciousness  in  terms  of  images.  On  this  view,  experience  is 
not  sufficiently  defined  as  a  subject-object  relation.  Its  form  is 
rather  that  of  psychological  presentation.  It  always  implies  a 
psychological  subject  looking  at  a  psychological  object;  in  other 
words,  it  implies  sensory  images  or  phenomena,  not  relations. 

ie  A.  E.  Taylor,  International  Journal  of  Ethics,  Vol.  XIII,  p.  61. 
17  Very  likely  such  a  view  would  hold  mere  description  in  terms  of  modern 
structural  psychology  inadequate  as  well. 


8      SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

The  truth  that  the  position  is  grounded  in  perception  may  be 
easily  verified  by  examining  their  statements  regarding  self- 
consciousness,  the  consciousness  of  other  selves  and  the  existence 
of  the  material  world.  This  must  be  done. 

In  the  first  place,  self-consciousness  is  based  on  a  perceptual 
criterion.  The  ego  knows  itself  through  interpreting  somehow 
the  impressions  given  in  its  conscious  states.  From  the  '  feel '  of 
these  it  gains  the  sense  of  personal  identity.  Taylor  describes 
self-consciousness  in  the  following  strikingly  perceptual  terms: 
"  This  unique  feeling  of  my  body  as  a  whole  accompanies  every 
moment  of  my  conscious  life  .  .  .  and  there  seems  to  be  no  doubt 
that  it  forms  the  foundation  of  the  sense  of  personal  identity.  If 
we  recollect  the  essentially  teleological  character  of  feeling,  we 
shall  be  inclined  to  say  that  my  body  as  thus  apprehended  is 
nothing  other  than  myself  as  a  striving  purposive  individual."18 
Other  writers  of  this  school  deny  any  such  direct  perception  of  the 
self  ;19  and  instead  describe  self -consciousness  as  an  '  interpreta- 
tion/ Peirce  and  especially  Royce  have  developed  this  view. 
But  such  interpretation  appears  also  to  rest  fundamentally  upon 
mental  representations  or  '  signs/  With  this  in  mind,  it  may  be 
worth  while  to  examine  a  characteristic  description  of  self-con- 
sciousness as  interpretation.  The  following  is  from  Royce: 
"  When  a  process  of  conscious  reflection  goes  on,  a  man  may  be 
said  to  interpret  himself  to  himself;  ...  in  general,  in  such  a 
case,  the  man  who  is  said  to  be  reflecting  remembers  some  former 
promise  or  resolve  of  his  own,  or  perhaps  reads  an  old  letter  that 
he  once  wrote,  or  an  entry  in  a  diary.  He  then,  at  some  present 
time,  interprets  this  expression  of  his  past  self  .  .  .  usually,  he  in- 
terprets this  bit  of  his  past  self  to  his  future  self.  .  .  .  And  there 
are  three  men  present  in  and  taking  part  in  the  interior  conver- 
sation :  the  man  of  the  past  whose  promises,  notes,  old  letters  are 
interpreted ;  the  present  self  who  interprets  them ;  and  the  future 
self  to  whom  the  interpretation  is  addressed/'20  Here  the  self 
is  evidently  not  identified  with  the  '  feel '  of  the  body  as  in  Taylor, 

is  A.  E.  Taylor,  Elements  of  Metaphysics,  p.  203. 

19  J.  Royce,  The  Problem  of  Christianity,  Vol.  II,  p.  138. 

20  Ibid.,  pp.  143-144. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL   INTERPRETATION.  9 

yet  the  fundamental  criterion  of  selfhood  appears  no  less  a  mental 
impression.  In  the  present  case,  it  is  the  memory-image  of  an 
old  promise,  the  sight  of  an  old  letter  or  diary  (instead  of  the 
body)  which  serves  as  the  unifying,  common  datum  that  makes 
possible  the  construction  of  a  unity  or  self  out  of  disparate  mental 
states.  Such  '  signs '  or  common  objects  at  the  basis  of  the  in- 
terpretation always  appear  to  be  images ;  they  are  the  psycholog- 
ical 'objects'  upon  which  the  'process'  rests.  The  unity  of  the 
self  is  a  construct  from  a  perceptual  given — in  interpretation  no 
less  than  when  the  life  of  the  body  is  taken  for  the  self.  In  all 
such  theories  self-consciousness  is  grounded  on  a  perceptual 
criterion. 

It  is  more  readily  evident  how  the  ego  can  know  other  selves 
only  through  perceptions.  For  instance,  it  would  be  inconceiv- 
able that  a  subject  should  know  other  naked  subjects  without  the 
mediation  of  a  presentation.  One  self  knows  another  only  by 
means  of  certain  representations  which  arise  in  its  own  con- 
sciousness, but  which  it  interprets  as  the  'signs'21  or  symbols  of 
an  independent  psychical  existence.  The  fact  that  we  can  learn 
of  the  existence  of  other  selves  only  through  the  interpretation 
of  our  own  perceptions  may  account  for  our  lack  of  communica- 

21  In  the  previous  discussion  of  the  ego's  knowledge  of  itself,  some  sug- 
gestion was  given  of  how  Royce,  in  his  later  period,  tried  to  show  the  essen- 
tially social  nature  of  consciousness  through  the  introduction  of  a  new  type  of 
cognitive  process  (originally  noted  by  C.  S,  Peirce)  called  *  interpretation.' 
This  was  a  process  said  to  hold  only  between  selves  (though,  as  we  have  seen, 
these  might  conceivably  be  in  the  same  body).  Indeed,  Royce  held  that  it  is 
through  this  interpretative  process  that  we  come  to  know  that  there  are  other 
selves.  He  says :  "  We  come  to  know  that  there  are  in  the  world  minds  not 
our  own  by  interpreting  the  signs  that  these  minds  give  us  of  their  presence." 
(Article  on  "  Mind,"  Hastings'  Encyclopaedia  of  Religion  and  Ethics,  Vol. 
VIII,  p.  651.)  But  though  this  interpretative  process  claims  to  be  based  in 
the  distinction  of  selves,  it  must  be  noted  that  fundamentally  it  rests  on 
images  or  '  signs '  within  my  own  subjective  states.  When  a  group  of  strik- 
ingly novel,  dynamic  and  coherent  ideas  appears  in  my  consciousness,  I 
'  interpret '  them  as  indicating  the  existence  of  my  fellow.  But  here  the  diffi- 
culty arises  as  to  how  I  am  to  distinguish  between  ideas  that  represent  my 
own  past  '  selves '  and  those  which  represent  veritable  other  '  persons.' 
Further,  there  is  no  apparent  reason  why  all  these  '  selves '  should  not  exhaust 
their  whole  reality  as  mere  presentations  within  my  enveloping  solipsistic 
consciousness. 


I0          SOME  MODERN   CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

tion  with  the  lower  animals  and  so-called  inanimate  nature.  The 
differences  in  their  organic  structure  and  in  the  kind  of  presenta- 
tions to  which  they  give  rise  in  our  consciousness  make  infer- 
ence as  to  the  exact  nature  of  their  selfhood  almost  impossible. 

The  material  world  as  such  is  defined  frankly  in  perceptual 
terms.  When  not  actually  in  perception,  it  is  thought  of  as  if 
perceived.  Not  to  elaborate  the  point,  a  representative  definition 
of  the  physical  order  from  this  view  may  be  quoted.  Royce  de- 
fines his  material  world  as,  "a  collection  of  actual  and  possible 
experiences  of  mine  such  that  you  too  can  agree  with  me  about 
the  presence  and  the  describable  character  of  these  experiences, 
precisely  in  so  far  as  you  have  equal  opportunities  with  me  to 
verify  their  presence."22  The  esse  of  the  material  world  is  its 
percipi,  though  this  percipi  be  stated  in  hypothetical  form.  Both 
our  knowledge  of  ourselves  and  other  selves,  as  well  as  that  of 
the  physical  order,  is  thus  seen  to  be  founded  on  perception.23 
And  such  knowledge  is  essentially  presentational  and  passive,  not 
growing  and  dynamic. 

Second,  this  point  of  view  is  subjective  and  individualistic.  As 
has  just  been  shown,  it  defines  knowledge  in  perceptual  or  pre- 
sentational terms.  And  the  standpoint  of  a  position  grounded 
in  perception  must  be  singularistic.  For  perception  is  an  in- 
communicable experience.  True,  this  type  of  thinking  seeks 
to  draw  a  distinction  between  two  kinds  of  presentation  to 
consciousness.  On  the  one  hand,  it  is  obvious  that  the  experi- 
ences of  my  ego  are  unique  and  private;  but  on  the  other  hand, 

22  J.  Royce,  The  World  and  the  Individual,  2nd  sen,  p.  167.     Taylor  states 
the  point  similarly :  "  Thus  '  there  really  exists  ice  at  the  South  Pole,  though 
no  human  eye  beholds  it,'  if  it  is  to  mean  anything  must  mean   either  that 
the  ice  itself,  as  we  should  perceive  it  if  it  were  there,  or  that  certain  unknown 
conditions  which,   combined  with   the  presence  of  a  human  spectator,  would 
yield  the  perception  of  the  ice,  actually  exists  as  part  of  the  contents  of  an 
experience  which  is  not  our  own."     (Elements  of  Metaphysics,  p.  26.) 

23  Taylor  has  a  striking  statement  summing  up  the  complete  dependence  of 
our   knowledge  of   the   external   world   upon    our  psycho-physical    organism. 
He  says :  "  For  Metaphysics,  it  does  not  seem  too  much  to  say,  this  double 
existence  of  my  body,  as  a  presented  object  about  which  I  have  knowledge  in 
the   same   way  as   about   everything   else,   and   as   an   immediately   felt   unity 
affords  the  key  to  the  whole  problem  of  the  '  independent '   existence  of  a 
reality  beyond  my  own  presentations."     Op.  cit.,  p.  203. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  INTERPRETATION.  H 

my  experiences  of  the  external  world  appear  to  be  by  their  very 
nature  shareable.  In  them  one  seems  to  meet  a  form  of  percep- 
tion not  essentially  private,  but  social.  For  the  assumption  at  the 
root  of  these  experiences  is  that  they  involve  objects  capable  of 
being  perceived  by  more  than  one  person,  objects  in  fact  that 
would  be  "patent  to  all  properly  equipped  observers."24  The 
function  of  the  physical  world  apparently  is  to  serve  as  the 
common  object  by  means  of  which  conscious  subjects  may  com- 
municate. Some  other  forms  of  experience,  such  as  purpose  and 
interpretation,  also  seem  to  involve  necessarily  a  social  object. 

But  even  if  for  certain  purposes  this  prima  facie  distinction  is 
accepted,  it  must  nevertheless  be  pointed  out  that  such  attempts 
to  assume  the  social  nature  of  the  object  in  certain  classes  of 
experiences,  while  denying  it  in  others,  virtually  cut  the  world 
in  two.  If  experience  is  one,  it  cannot  be  thus  divided  into 
private  worlds  and  social  worlds.  What  these  thinkers  have  mis- 
taken for  social  character  peculiar  to  certain  of  our  experiences 
is  really  a  presupposition  throughout.  The  point  is  not  that  cer- 
tain experiences,  such  as  purpose,  interpretation  and  physical 
nature,  give  us  common  ground  with  our  fellows,  but  that  the 
presupposition  of  all  experience  is  its  universality.  The  assump- 
tion on  which  experience  proceeds  is  that  it  is  one,  organic.  But 
so  long  as  these  thinkers  define  experience  as  presentation  to 
consciousness,  they  are  defining  it  in  terms  of  perception  by 
*  centres/  that  is,  as  so  many  private  disparate  apergus. 

Third,  the  recognition  of  consciousness  as  social  and  dynamic 
does  not,  as  these  writers  seem  to  assume,  necessarily  exclude 
the  possibility  that  it  may  be  individualistic  and  presentational 
as  well.  For  a  consciousness  may  function  as  a  unity  in  a  mani- 
fold entirely  within  itself.  Within  its  own  mental  states  a  con- 
sciousness may  be  held  to  constitute  a  society.  It  may  serve  as 
dynamic  subject  to  its  passive  ideas  or  presentations,  while  yet 
remaining  fundamentally  solipsistic  and  presentational  in  char- 

2*  Royce,  Outlines  of  Psychology,  p.  2.  Here  and  elsewhere  Royce  dis- 
tinguishes between  the  mental  and  physical  worlds  on  the  basis  that  the  facts 
of  the  one  are  exclusive  and  private,  while  those  of  the  other  are  essentially 
'  public  property.' 


I2    SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

acter.  In  other  words,  a  mere  emphasis  on  the  dynamic  and 
social  side  of  consciousness  does  not  of  itself  exclude  presenta- 
tionism  and  solipsism. 

Fourth,  a  truly  social  and  dynamic  view  of  consciousness  would 
be  organic-,  i.e.,  for  it  consciousness  would  involve  genuine  dis- 
tinctions and  oppositions  functioning  together  within  a  living 
whole.  But  the  position  here  criticized  conceives  consciousness 
dualistically.  Mind  is  taken  as  riven  asunder  and  involved  in  an 
infinite  process  of  getting  its  halves  together  again.  This  un- 
conquerable dualism  of  mind  expresses  itself  in  various  forms, 
such  as,  the  antagonism  between  thought  and  fact,  between  uni- 
versals  and  particulars,  between  repetition  and  creation.  "  We  all 
endlessly  war  against  the  essential  narrowness  of  our  conscious 
field  "  ;25  and  this  warfare  is  accounted  the  essence  of  conscious- 
ness. But  to  conceive  mind  as  an  endless,  inconclusive  warfare 
is  certainly  not  to  conceive  it  as  social  and  dynamic ;  or  if  so,  only 
in  the  extreme  negative  sense.  Such  a  view  fails  to  do  justice  to 
the  affirmative  aspect  of  mental  life.  A  truer  way  to  regard  mind, 
it  was  suggested,  would  be  to  view  it  as  an  organism.  An  organ- 
ism may  be  said  to  be  truly  social  and  dynamic,  because  its  parts 
function  together  in  the  process  of  life  and  growth. 

The  position  here  referred  to,  however,  appears  to  conceive 
consciousness  as  a  '  push-and-pull '  process  of  factors  in  external 
relation.  Consciousness  is  the  eternal  attempt  of  thought  to  grasp 
experience.  "Being  is  something  other  than  themselves  which 
finite  ideas  seek."26  The  nature  of  thought,  on  this  view,  is  to  be 
always  restlessly  pressing  forward  to  an  object  beyond  itself,  yet 
never  to  be  fully  adequate  to  reality.27  It  divides  the  '  what '  from 
the  '  that,'  and  can  never  get  them  together  again.  The  endless 
pursuit  and  struggle  of  thought  to  master  experience  always  fails, 
because  experience  remains  'richer  than  thought/  Thought  is 
only  able  to  grasp  relations,  abstract  universals,  the  '  science '  of 
things.  The  'particular/  the  concrete  real,  it  can  never  reach 

26  Royce,  The  World  and  the  Individual,  ist  ser.,  p.  56. 

26  Ibid.,  p.  340. 

27  Taylor,  Elements  of  Metaphysics,  p.  410. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  INTERPRETATION.  !3 

"save  by  traversing  an  interminable  series."28  The  individual, 
the  concrete  totality,  remains  only  the  goal  of  consciousness. 
The  process  of  mind  consists  in  an  infinite  series  of  facts  and 
ideas  in  correspondence,  forever  approaching  their  union  in  the 
individual  system.29  The  form  of  consciousness,  on  such  a  view, 
remains  the  infinite  series  and  never  becomes  the  organic  system. 
It  may  be  concluded  from  the  foregoing  considerations  that 
the  form  of  idealism  here  examined  does  not,  merely  by  empha- 
sizing verbally  the  social  and  dynamic  aspects  of  consciousness, 
free  itself  from  implications  of  an  individualistic  and  structural 
standpoint.  Its  real  difference  from  Berkeley  appears  primarily 
a  matter  of  emphasis ;  it  lays  stress  upon  the  activity  and  interre- 
lation of  consciousness.  But  this  insistence  on  the  social  and  dy- 
namic phases  of  mind  does  not  alter  the  logical  presuppositions 

28  Ward,  Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,  4th   ed.,  pp.  572,   573-     In  Ward's 
words,  "  Thought  gives  us  only  '  science,'  not  existence.  .  .  «  Thought,  again, 
gives  us  only  the  '  universal,'  the  relational ;  from  the  '  particular,'   which  is 
the  'surd'  for  it — or  the  real  meeting  point  or  subject  of  relations — it  must 
start,  but  to  this  particular  it  can  never  return  save  by  traversing  an  inter- 
minable   series.     But    this    reality,    richer    than    thought,    is    experience.  .  .  . 
Science  is  but  the  skeleton,  while  experience  is  the  life.  .  .  ." 

29  This  doctrine  of  mind  as  an  infinite  series  of  facts  and  ideas  in  corre- 
spondence has  been  worked  out  with  great  elaboration  by  Royce.     (Cf.  espe- 
cially:  Supplementary  Essay,   The  World  and  the  Individual,   ist  ser.)     For 
Royce,  "  the   essence   of  Idealism  lies  in  its  thesis  that   to  every  fact  corre- 
sponds the  knowledge  of  that  fact,  while  every  act  of  knowledge  itself  belongs 
to   the   world   of   facts.     Since,    however,   the   fact-world  .  .  .  contains    many 
aspects  .  .  .  which  are  not  identical  with  knowledge,  ...  it  follows  that,  for 
an  idealist,  the  facts  which  constitute  the  existence  of  knowledge  are  them- 
selves but   a  part,   and  are  not  the  whole   of  the  world   of  facts.     Yet,  by 
hypothesis,   this   part,   since   it   contains   acts   of   knowledge   corresponding  to 
every  real  fact,  is  adequate  to  the  whole,  or,  in  Dedekind's  sense,  is  equal  to 
the  whole  ...  In  brief  for  the  idealist,  the  real  world  is  a  self-representa- 
tive system,  and  is  therefore  infinite."     (Hibbert  Journal,  Vol.  I,  pp.  40,  41.) 
In  other  words,  Royce  finds  thought  can  be  adequate  to  reality,  and  the  part 
equal  to  the  whole,  only  through  acceptance  of  the  ontological  reality  of  the 
mathematical  infinite.     And  he  tries  to  prove  the  mathematical  infinite  is  not 
a  '  Schlecht-Unendliche'  but  a   self-representative,  well-ordered   series,   there- 
fore possessed  of  totality.     The  type  of  the  concrete  totality  of  the  world,  for 
Royce,  is  the  self-representative  series.     But  how  is  it  conceivable  that  corre- 
sponding series   of  facts  and   abstract  universals   infinitely   separated   should 
ever  give  us  the  concrete  living  system  of  consciousness  or  an  organic  world? 


I4          SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

of  this  view,  which  remain  at  bottom  individualistic  and  presenta- 
tional, no  matter  what  structures  of  social  and  functional  psy- 
chology be  superimposed. 

At  length  the  point  is  reached  at  which  idealism  of  this  type 
must  face  the  problem  of  an  external  world.  Since  these  writers 
assume  the  field  of  conscious  states  to  be  the  only  immediate  and 
certain  knowledge,  everything  beyond  the  ego's  states  is  regarded 
as  mediate  and  demanding  proof.  The  burden  of  proof  is  thus 
thrown  entirely  upon  the  external  world.  The  fact  that  such 
idealism  requires  demonstrations  to  prove  the  existence  of  an 
external  world  shows  beyond  doubt,  of  course,  that  its  initial 
standpoint  is  psychological,  i.e.,  shut  within  the  field  of  inner  con- 
sciousness. The  crux  of  the  demonstration  of  a  reality  beyond 
the  ego  is  found  in  the  proof  for  the  existence  of  our  fellows. 
It  is  the  possibility  of  a  metaphysical  proof  for  our  strong  psycho- 
logical certainty  of  our  fellows  which  is  the  key  to  the  demonsta- 
tion  of  the  whole  external  world.  The  arguments  for  the  exist- 
ence of  our  fellows  fall  roughly  into  two  groups.  There  are 
those,  first,  which  attempt  to  show,  on  the  basis  of  evidence  from 
psychology,  that  the  nature  of  consciousness  is  social,  and  there- 
fore implies  the  existence  of  other  selves.  Secondly,  there  are 
the  primarily  logical  arguments,  which  appeal  chiefly  to  the  pre- 
suppositions of  consciousness. 

Under  the  first  type  of  argument,  based  on  the  appeal  to  im- 
mediate consciousness,  belongs  the  large  amount  of  psychological 
data  adduced  to  prove  either  directly  or  indirectly,  the  objective 
reality  of  a  society  of  selves.  These  facts  have  already  been 
noted  at  sufficient  length.  Conation,  selection  and  purpose  are 
taken  to  imply  the  existence  of  a  world  of  selves  beyond  myself. 
Material  is  drawn  both  from  ontogenetic  and  phylogenetic  psy- 
chology. Appeal  is  made  to  special  doctrines,  such  as  the  theory 
of  imitation.  A  new  cognitive  process,  known  as  interpretation, 
is  discovered  which  is  held  to  be  based  in  the  distinction  of  selves.30 
Criticism  that  may  be  advanced  against  such  psychological  lines 
of  "argument  for  our  fellows  are :  First,  many  of  the  facts  them- 

30  Cf.  footnote  21. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  INTERPRETATION.  i§ 

selves  are  open  to  dispute  and  to  varying  interpretation.31  Second, 
social  consciousness  of  itself  cannot  prove  the  existence  of  other 
selves.  Evidence  for  the  social  nature  of  consciousness  proves 
nothing  with  regard  to  the  independent  existence  of  the  objects  of 
consciousness.  Lastly,  the  offer  of  merely  psychological  evidence 
as  an  argument  contradicts  the  essential  logic  of  such  idealism. 
For  psychological  belief  as  such  no  more  proves  the  existence 
of  my  fellows  than  it  proves  the  independent  existence  of  mate- 
rial objects. 

But  more  important  are  the  primarily  logical  arguments  for  the 
existence  of  our  fellows.  Of  these,  only  three  leading  ones  will 
be  considered.  The  chief  argument  urged  by  Ward  is  best  stated 
in  The  Realm  of  Ends.52  It  is  based  on  Kant's  objective  deduc- 
tion, viz.,  that  apperception  (or  the  consciousness  of  objects  which 
goes  with  self -consciousness)  is  the  presupposition  of  all  experi- 
ence. Ward  points  out,  what  he  claims  Kant  overlooked,  that 
this  pre-condition  of  experience  is  to  be  found  only  in  a  society. 
For,  says  Ward,  the  very  universality  and  necessity  of  Kant's 
judgments  of  experience — not  to  mention  his  formulation  of  the 
moral  law — imply  that  objective  validity  involves  a  society  of 
selves.  The  most  fundamental  presupposition  of  consciousness, 
then,  according  to  Ward,  is  the  existence  of  a  plurality  of  selves 
in  intersubjective  intercourse.  Because  Kant  himself  failed  to 
see  this,  he  remained  in  a  kind  of  solipsism,  a  "  wider  solipsism  " 
of  the  "  Bewusstsein  uberhaupt."33 

The  question  in  regard  to  Ward's  argument  is,  by  what  right 
he  interprets  the  presupposition  of  consciousness,  Kant's  tran- 
scendental ego,  in  personalistic  and  psychological  terms.  By 
'  consciousness  in  general '  Kant  clearly  does  not  mean  a  summa- 
tion of  particular  individual  minds.  The  pre-condition  of  experi- 

si  I  cite  only  one  important  instance.  Ward  apparently  holds  consciousness 
to  be  originally  and  primarily  egoistic,  and  only  subsequently  socialized  in  the 
genetic  process  (see  quotation,  p.  5  of  this  study),  whereas  Royce  clearly 
does  not  (Cf.  Studies  of  Good  and  Evil,  p.  201  ff.). 

82  J.  Ward,  The  Realm  of  Ends,  p.  127. 

33  Ward,  Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,  3rd  ed.,  Vol.  II,  p.  197.  It  is  inter- 
esting to  compare  his  statements  here  with  the  later  one,  The  Realm  of  Ends, 
p.  127. 


X6     SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

ence  discovered  by  the  transcendental  method  can  only  be  a  uni- 
versal logical  principle.  As  a  true  logical  universal,  the 
transcendental  ego  cannot  be  particularized  to  furnish  forth  an 
argument  for  either  pluralistic  or  monistic  personalism. 

The  second  important  argument  for  the  existence  of  our  fel- 
lows is  one  offered  by  Royce,34  an  application  of  his  favorite 
idealistic  argument  from  the  fragmentary  nature  of  our  experi- 
ence to  the  whole.  If  our  f  ragmentariness  logically  implies  a  real 
beyond,  then  certainly  our  fellows  are  real,  for  our  truest  experi- 
ences of  supplementation  come  from  communication  with  them. 
Because  our  fellows  complete  our  incompleteness,  they  are  known 
to  be  real.  According  to  Royce's  further  doctrine,  being  is  mean- 
ing, and  reality  nothing  but  the  endless  quest  to  discover  my  whole 
meaning.  My  fellows  help  me  to  discover  this  infinite  inner 
meaning  of  mine  by  proving  to  me  a  '  thesaurus  of  needed  ideas  '35 
through  their  deeds.  Subsequently  I  view  these  supplementary 
meanings  as  having  a  particular  embodiment  in  other  selves.  For 
the  logic  of  idealism  exerts  an  ethical  compulsion  on  us  to 
acknowledge  that  such  finite  internal  meanings  find  some  prior 
outward  embodiment  in  reality. 

Any  full  criticism  of  this  argument  would  involve  an  enquiry 
into  Royce's  whole  metaphysics.  But  adopting  his  assumption 
that  reality  is  my  complete  meaning  which  I  start  to  learn  from 
my  finite  fragmentary  meaning,  the  question  shapes  itself :  What 
is  the  criterion  by  which  I  detect  that  certain  supplementary  mean- 
ings that  come  to  me  are  not  part  of  my  own  mental  processes,  but 
represent  another  self?  On  Royce's  view,  there  seems  to  be  no 
final  distinguishing  mark  between  a  self  and  its  mental  states,  or 
between  self  and  self.36  I  might  very  well  consider  the  whole 
universe  as  the  world  of  my  private  mental  states,  which  the  im- 
perative of  my  will  is  constantly  converting  from  external  into 

34  Royce,  The  World  and  the  Individual,  2nd  sen,  p.  171  ff. 

35  It    is   also,    Royce    elsewhere   points   out,   the   coherence   of   these    ideas 
among  themselves,   their   novelty,    contrast   and   conflict   with    my    established 
ideas,  which  evidences  to  me  the  presence  of  a  mind,  and  that  not  my  own. 
(Article  on  "  Mind,"  discussion  of  interpretation,  Hasting's  Encyclopaedia  of 
Religion  and  Ethics,  Vol.  VIII.) 

36  Cf.  footnote  21. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL   INTERPRETATION.  ^ 

internal  meanings.  The  recognition  of  new  meanings  need  not 
signify  the  existence  of  a  world  outside  me,  but  might  very  well 
be  an  explication  by  my  will  of  its  own  essential  presuppositions. 

The  last  argument  worth  mention  is  one  developed  by  Taylor.37 
Like  that  of  Royce,  Taylor's  argument  finds  its  basis  in  the  reality 
of  my  meanings  and  purposes.  In  form  it  represents  an  appli- 
cation of  the  Cartesian  Cogito  ergo  sum.  Taylor  argues  that  the 
very  same  experience  which  assures  me  of  the  reality  of  my  own 
purposes  guarantees  at  the  same  time  the  reality  of  the  purposes 
of  my  fellows.  Not  merely  do  I  recognize  a  kinship  between  their 
purposes  and  my  own,  but  only  in  the  light  of  the  wider  system  of 
their  purposes  do  my  own  gain  a  meaning.  "  Unless  the  purposes 
of  my  society  are  real,  the  whole  of  my  own  inner  life  ...  is  itself 
a  pure  illusion."  If  one  should  ask  how  proof  of  the  purposes 
guaranteed  the  reality  of  a  society  of  individuals  behind  them, 
Taylor  would  refer  to  the  '  certain  principle '  that  signs  of  definite 
meaning  and  purpose  must  always  issue  from  minds. 

The  same  query  arises  as  in  the  case  of  Royce.  Even  if  signs 
of  purpose  imply  the  existence  of  mind,  no  sufficient  reason  is 
advanced  why  these  should  not  be  the  explication  of  my  own 
latent  purposes,  and  not  at  all  imply  the  existence  of  other  minds. 
Moreover,  if  my  purposes  demand  the  reality  of  my  fellows,  do 
they  not  equally  demand  the  reality  of  my  whole  conceptual  and 
perceptual  world  ?  The  subjective  demand  of  my  purposes  could 
guarantee  in  the  same  way  all  my  fantastic  illusions,  so  that  the 
objective  distinction  between  truth  and  error  would  entirely 
vanish.  Again  the  argument  is  based  on  the  error  of  inferring 
from  a  mere  activity  of  mind  a  consideration  regarding  an  inde- 
pendent object  of  mind. 

Some  general  observations  may  conclude  consideration  of  the 
arguments  for  the  existence  of  our  fellows.  To  begin  with,  it 
seems  impossible  to  understand  how  an  idealism  which  places  its 
criterion  in  subjective  presentation  to  consciousness  can  ever  get 
beyond  solipsism.38  Our  progress  to  this  conclusion  has  been 

37  Taylor,  International  Journal  of  Ethics,  Vol.  XIII,  p.  67. 

38  This,    of    course,    is    just    the    neo-realist's    criticism    of    (subjective) 
idealism. 


18          SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

indicated.  Again,  the  self  is  fundamentally  misconceived  for  the 
reason  that  it  is  ultimately  grounded  in  perception.  Whether  the 
self  be  frankly  identified  with  the  psycho-physical  organism,  or 
whether  it  be  treated  as  a  social  or  ethical  '  interpretation '  or  as 
a  presupposition,  the  appeal  is  always  to  some  existential  impres- 
sion,39 to  some  psychological  phenomenon  for  its  validation.  Just 
because  the  self  is  thus  regarded  as  a  phenomenon,  an  entity  or  a 
'  person/  it  falls  short  of  being  a  logical  universal  or  all-inclusive 
principle  or  organization. 

So  much  time  has  been  devoted  to  the  arguments  for  other 
selves  because  the  proof  of  their  existence  and  of  our  relation  to 
them  is  the  crux  of  the  psychological  standpoint  with  regard  to 
nature.  As  will  later  appear  clear,  psychological  interaction  be- 
tween selves  is  here  the  fundamental  form  of  law.  This  lengthy 
discussion  of  the  arguments  for  other  selves  was  not  only  an 
essential  preliminary,  but  in  a  sense  the  heart  of  the  problem.  If 
the  preceding  arguments  have  proved  our  fellow-men  to  be  real 
and  our  relation  to  them  a  genuine  one,  then  the  essence  of  the 
external  world  has  been  discovered  to  rest  in  its  social  character. 
"  Nature  for  us,  then,"  writes  Professor  Royce,  "  is  real  in  pre- 
cisely the  sense  in  which  our  fellow-men  are  real."40  Moreover, 
the  interpretation  of  nature  which  follows  is  wholly  dependent  on 
the  successful  proof  of  the  existence  of  our  fellows.  For  on  this 
view,  "  our  conception  of  physical  reality  as  such  is  secondary  to 
our  conception  of  our  social  fellow-beings,  and  is  actually  derived 
therefrom."41  Hence  should  our  conception  of  our  fellows  be  de- 
stroyed, the  whole  of  nature  would  go  with  them. 

It  may  be  well  to  reflect  on  the  progress  made  thus  far  in  com- 

39  Such  a  passage  as  this,  for  instance,  shows  how  these  writers  constantly 
look  to  some  sublimated  impression  of  ego  or  alter.     "  The  original,  as  Hume 
would  say,  of  the  conception  of  a  non-Ego  is  given  to  me  in  my  social  ex- 
periences."    (Royce,  Studies  of  Good  and  Evil,  p.  205.) 

40  Royce,  The  World  and  the  Individual,  2nd  sen,  p.  236. 

41  Royce,  Studies  of  Good  and  Evil,  p.  205.     Italics  mine..     Cf.  Ward,  J., 
Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,  3rd  ed.,  Vol.  II,  p.  279.     "  If  then,  as  rational 
beings  ...  we   want   to    interpret   and   understand   the   full   meaning   of    the 
world,  must  we  not  .  .  .  consider  first  what  we  know  best,  the  interaction  of 

mind   with   mind — and   this   must   be    the    basis   of   our   interpretation " 

(Italics  mine.) 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  INTERPRETATION.  I9 

prehending  the  psychological  view.  The  ultimate  objective,  it 
will  be  recalled,  is  to  discover  the  psychological  interpretation  of 
natural  law.  But  the  problem  of  nature  has  to  be  approached 
from  the  point  of  view  of  subjective  mind.  Accepting  the  con- 
scious states  of  the  ego  as  primary  given  data,  the  procedure  is 
first  to  deduce  therefrom  the  existence  of  other  selves.  Only 
when  the  existence  of  other  selves  has  been  demonstrated  does 
it  become  possible  to  infer  the  reality  of  the  rest  of  nature.  The 
reason  presumably  is  that  the  proof  of  our  fellows  establishes 
not  merely  the  existence  of  independent  psychical  centres,  but  of 
their  bodies  or  physical  correlates  as  well.  Once  the  independent 
existence  of  some  physical  entities  is  proved,  it  becomes  a  com- 
paratively simple  matter  to  pass  to  the  reality  of  the  whole  phys- 
ical world.  But  it  may  be  recalled  that  the  previous  demonstra- 
tions of  our  fellows  have  not  appeared  satisfactory.  Difficulties 
have  been  urged  both  with  regard  to  the  psychological  standpoint 
as  a  whole,  and  especially  with  regard  to  the  arguments  by  which 
it  was  sought  to  extend  the  standpoint  of  individual  experience 
so  as  to  make  it  include  a  knowledge  of  our  fellow-men.  These 
difficulties  may,  however,  be  laid  aside  for  the  present  while  an 
account  of  nature  is  given  in  terms  of  the  psychological  theory. 

The  argument  has  proceeded  as  far  as  the  demonstrations  for 
the  existence  of  our  fellows.  Assuming  the  existence  of  our  fel- 
lows proved,  how  does  this  furnish  the  foundation  for  a  theory 
of  nature  ?  Already  the  answer  has  been  partly  suggested.  The 
proof  of  our  fellows  shows  two  things:  first,  the  existence  of  a 
relatively  independent  external  reality;  second,  that  in  this  in- 
stance at  least,  the  independent  reality  has  both  a  physical  aspect 
and  a  mental  aspect.  "  You  can  and  must  say  that  to  one  portion 
of  phenomenal  nature,  viz.,  to  the  observed  bodily  movements  of 
your  fellows,  there  corresponds  an  inner  life."42  It  is  the  dis- 
covery of  this  fact  which  essentially  yields  the  clue  to  the  argu- 
ment for  physical  nature  as  a  whole.  The  inseparability  of  an 
'  outer '  from  an  '  inner/  found  in  the  case  of  the  independent  ex- 
istence of  our  fellows,  points  to  the  fact  that  any  proof  for  further 

42  Royce,  Studies  of  Good  and  Evil,  p.  227.  Cf.  Taylor,  Elements  of 
Metaphysics,  p.  204. 


20    SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

independent  existences  in  an  external  world  implies  also,  just  so 
far,  the  presence  behind  these  natural  phenomena  of  conscious 
life.  The  meaning  of  '  independent  existence/  it  is  discovered,  is 
just '  existence  as  centres  of  experience.'43  There  is  but  one  main 
argument  for  the  reality  of  the  rest  of  nature.  It  is  based  on  the 
existence  of  our  fellows.  It  is  the  argument  from  the  continuity 
of  nature  with  them. 

While  the  argument  from  continuity  is  constantly  relied  on  both 
by  Ward  and  Taylor,  it  finds  fullest  statement  perhaps  in  the 
pages  of  Royce.  His  outline  of  the  argument  is  as  follows: 
"The  continuity  between  man  and  nature,  known  to  us  first  as 
the  absolute  inseparability  of  the  expressive  movements  of  our 
fellows  from  the  nature-processes  in  which  these  movements 
appear  to  be  imbedded,  and  of  which  they  are  phenomenally  a 
part,  has  now  become,  in  the  light  of  our  whole  experience  of 
natural  phenomena,  an  all-embracing  continuity,  extending  to 
cerebral  and  to  general  physiological  processes,  and  to  the  an- 
cestry and  evolution  of  the  human  race.  ...  If ,  then,  one's  fellow 
is  real,  the  whole  of  the  phenomenal  nature  from  which  his  phe- 
nomenal presence  is  continuous  must  be  real  in  the  same  general 
fashion"4*  While  such  proof  is  only  'probable/45  it  remains, 
Royce  holds,  the  only  possible  one  for  the  existence  of  nature 
beyond  the  range  of  observable  facts.46  The  argument  more- 
over, these  writers  show,  is  supported  by  our  recent  scientific 
knowledge,47  by  the  facts  of  evolution,48  and  by  the  force  of 
logic.49  On  this  last  point,  the  contention  is  that  it  would  be  a 
violation  of  logic  to  hold  that  part  of  the  system  of  nature  was 
more  than  mere  presentations,  while  inferring  the  rest  to  consist 
only  of  presentations.  Also  the  argument  from  continuity  ac- 
quires force  from  the  general  idealistic  doctrine  that  reality  is 

43  Op.  tit.,  p.   208. 

44  Royce,  Studies  of  Good  and  Evil,  p.  228.     Italics  mine.     Also  Philosoph- 
ical Review,  Vol.  IV,  p.  584. 

45  Royce,  Studies  of  Good  and  Evil,  p.  206. 

46  Ibid.,  p.  229. 

47  Ward,  The  Realm  of  Ends,  p.  21. 

48  Royce,  Studies  of  Good  and  Evil,  p.  206. 

4»  Taylor,  International  Journal  of  Ethics,  Vol.  XIII,  p.  62. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  INTERPRETATION.  21 

mind  throughout,  revealing  itself  through  an  outer  embodiment. 
Again  it  may  be  said  the  argument  from  continuity  gains  strength 
from  the  powerful  impression  of  a  telelogical  relation  between 
nature  and  mind,  evidenced  by  the  achievements  of  science.  The 
responsiveness  of  nature  to  mind  is  too  great  to  be  accounted  for 
by  the  laws  of  chance;50  it  would  seem  to  imply  the  presence  of 
mind  in  nature. 

Now  if  the  existence  of  our  fellows  has  been  satisfactorily 
proved,  and  if  the  foregoing  argument  from  the  continuity  of 
nature  with  them  holds,  nature  resolves  into  a  world  of  psychical 
subjects.  In  accordance  with  the  proviso  that  everything  must 
be  real  in  the  same  fashion  as  one's  fellow,  and  that  '  independent 
existence '  means  existence  as  a  centre  of  sentient  experience, 
panpsychism  is  enthroned.  "  Nature  thus  resolves  into  a  plurality 
of  conative  individuals."51  It  becomes  a  realm  of  finite  spirits, 
varying  vastly  in  type  perhaps,  yet  in  principle  like  ourselves. 
One  has  no  right  to  speak  of  '  dead '  nature  but  only  of  '  uncom- 
municative '  nature.52  This  implies  more  than  the  mere  presence 
of  life  everywhere  in  nature;  it  implies  consciousness  in  some 
form.  Nature  must  consist  of  "  beings  possessing  the  same  gen- 
eral kind  of  sentient  purposive  experience  as  ourselves,  though 
conceivably  infinitely  various  in  the  degree  of  clearness  with 
which  they  are  aware  of  their  own  subjective  aims  and  inter- 
ests. .  .  .  "53  In  the  general  principle  of  panpsychism,  Royce, 
Ward  and  Taylor  are  agreed.54 

so  Royce,  The  Problem  of  Christianity,  Vol.  II.  "  The  progress  of  natural 
science,  since  Galileo  began  his  work,  .  .  .  has  been  (so  Charles  Peirce  as- 
serts) prodigiously  faster  than  it  could  have  been  had  mere  chance  guided  the 
inventive  processes  of  the  great  scientific  thinkers"  (p.  411).  "Now  such  a 
teleological  process  as  this  which  man's  scientific  successes  express,  illustrates 
the  teleology  of  a  spiritual  process  .  .  ."  (p.  420). 

5i  Ward,  The  Realm  of  Ends,  p.  21. 

62  Royce,  Studies  of  Good  and  Evil,  p.  230. 

53  Taylor,  Elements  of  Metaphysics,  p.  209. 

5*  There  is  one  point  of  difference  in  their  panpsychism  which  perhaps 
requires  mention.  Ward  and  Taylor  admit  degrees  of  individuality  and  a 
corresponding  scale  of  values  in  nature.  Royce  does  not  acknowledge  this. 
He  holds  we  have  no  right  to  consider  humanity  as  a  kind  of  final  term  in  an 
evolution  of  nature  from  '  lower '  to  '  higher.'  In  his  own  words,  "  we  cer- 
tainly do  not  know  that  the  nature-experience  whose  inner  sense  is  not  now 


22          SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS   OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

It  is  perhaps  worth  repeating  that  a  panpsychic  view  of  nature 
has  meaning  only  if  you  conceive  consciousness  and  reality  fun- 
damentally in  presentative  terms.  For  panpsychism  does  not 
seem  to  place  rational  and  ideational  consciousness  throughout 
nature,  but  rather  sensation,  feeling  and  impulse — the  pre- 
sentative side  of  mind.  It  is  only  because  consciousness  is  con- 
ceived ultimately  in  presentative  terms,  that  it  is  possible  to  point 
to  the  presence  of  rudimentary  sensation,  feeling  and  impulse  in 
the  amoeba,  for  instance,  as  striking  evidence  that  the  nature  of 
reality  is  mental. 

In  closing  this  chapter,  some  general  criticism  must  be  made  of 
the  argument  from  continuity.  Continuity,  as  used  by  these 
writers,  is  both  a  mathematical  and  a  biological  concept.  Its 
original  meaning  as  employed  by  Leibniz  (and  here  adapted  by 
Ward)  was  a  generalization  from  the  property  of  number  series, 
signifying  their  infinite  divisibility.  Carried  to  the  natural  world, 
continuity  becomes  the  axiom  "  Nature  never  makes  leaps/'  an 
interpretation  emphasized  today  by  the  facts  of  evolution.  The 
point  worth  attention  is  that  continuity,  both  as  a  mathematical 
and  as  a  biological  concept,  is  a  quantitative  notion.  It  has  to  do 
with  the  relations  of  objects  in  phenomenal  worlds,  and  hence  is 
a  quantitative  continuum,  involving  quantitative  infinity.  Con- 
tinuity in  the  space-time  order  of  nature,  no  less  than  in  the  world 
of  geometrical  points  and  lines,  is  a  relation  holding  between 
objects  external  to  each  other,  and  therefore  implies  the  quanti- 
tative continuum  and  mathematical  infinity. 

But  if  such  continuity  involves  the  mathematical  infinite,  it  be- 
comes incomprehensible  how  Ward,  for  instance,  can  accept  con- 
tinuity yet  refuse  to  recognize  the  reality  of  this  infinity.  Here 
he  is  apparently  guilty  of  contradiction.  Royce  and  Taylor  are 
not  much  more  successful.  Though  recognizing  the  mathematical 
infinite  as  real,  they  admit  it  simply  as  a  fact — just  as  they 
acknowledge  continuity  as  a  fact — without  comprehending  that 
its  reality  is  owing  to  its  basis  in  a  logical  principle.  True,  Taylor 

communicated  to  us  is  in  the  least  lower  or  less  full  of  meaning."  (Studies 
of  Good  and  Evil,  p.  232.)  The  uncommunicativeness  of  nature  would  seem 
to  be  due  simply  to  '  arbitrary '  differences  of  time-span  and  sense  organs. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  INTERPRETATION.  23 

tries  to  show  (but  without  following  out  the  implications)  that 
continuity  is  an  imperfect  representation  of  the  law  of  Ground 
and  Consequent.  But  neither  of  them  grasp  continuity  as  relation, 
or  the  true  principle  underlying  it,  which  is  the  principle  of  log- 
ical nexus,  of  systematic  connection  of  parts  within  a  whole.55 
The  argument  from  continuity  fails  because  it  is  not  based  upon 
continuity  conceived  as  the  relation  of  parts  within  a  logical  sys- 
tem, but  upon  continuity  as  a  fact,  the  quantitative  continuity  of 
the  phenomenal  order. 

But  with  the  attainment  of  a  panpsychical  view  of  nature,  the 
first  stage  of  this  enquiry  may  be  said  to  have  reached  its  con- 
clusion. A  consideration  of  the  general  presuppositions  of  the 
psychological  standpoint  as  a  whole  has  led  to  the  discovery  that 
the  external  world  reduces  to  a  society  of  living,  conscious  sub- 
jects. Natural  law,  therefore,  must  consist  in  the  modes  of  be- 
havior of  these  subjects.  The  next  task,  accordingly,  is  to 
interpret  the  laws  of  nature  as  the  actions  of  living,  conscious 
individuals. 

In  presenting  the  psychological  point  of  view  in  this  chapter, 
I  have  tried  to  make  clear  that  subjects  and  their  conscious  states 
are  taken  as  ultimate  given  data  beyond  analysis.  Owing  to  this 
acceptance  of  the  states  of  the  ego  as  irreducible  data,  the  ego  is 
conceived  presentationally  and  as  a  particular  entity.  In  being 
acknowledged  as  fact,  it  gets  denied  as  logical  principle.  Mind  is 
taken  always  as  divided  into  so  many  *  selves/  '  persons '  or  mental 
'  states.'  But  in  being  treated  as  a  collection  of  particular  exist- 
ences, mind  ceases  to  be  rational  principle.  It  is  in  this  sense 
that  the  position  is  called  psychological  as  opposed  to  logical.  The 
deduction  of  the  whole  external  world  from  an  isolated,  presenta- 
tional ego,  by  means  of  doubtful  demonstrations  for  the  existence 
of  our  fellows  and  an  argument  from  continuity,  affords  some- 
what dubious  promise  for  the  panpsychical  view  of  nature  and 
natural  law  to  be  examined  in  the  following  chapter. 

55  The  same  criticism  is  developed  later  against  their  conception  of  Uni- 
formity. 


24    SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

CHAPTER  II :  THE  PANPSYCHICAL  CONCEPTION  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

As  was  explained  in  the  previous  chapter,  the  psychological 
standpoint  implies  a  panpsychical  view  of  nature.  A  psycholog- 
ical interpretation  of  natural  law  must  show  all  relations  and  laws 
of  nature  to  be  modes  of  expression  of  conscious  subjects.  This 
is  avowedly  no  light  task.  The  panpsychist  himself  recognizes 
that  the  presence  of  consciousness  anywhere  in  the  world  is  de- 
tected through  its  peculiar  signs  of  '  progressive  adaptability '  to 
situations,  through  purposiveness  and  uniqueness  of  response  by 
which  it  makes  itself  known.  Yet  certainly  these  are  not  generally 
allowed  to  be  marked  characters  of  nature.  On  the  contrary, 
the  distinguishing  mark  of  nature  is  usually  thought  of  as  rigid 
conformity  to  routine. 

Natural  laws  are  generally  conceived  as  impersonal  necessities, 
proceeding  without  deviation  by  mechanical  uniformity.  Our 
scientific  laws  enable  us  to  predict  certain  physical  events  with 
the  highest  degree  of  certainty.  That  events  can  be  so  predicted 
is  apparently  because  all  nature  moves  by  a  mechanism  of  cause 
and  effect.  Nowhere  is  variation  or  spontaneity  admitted  to 
break  the  strict  routine.  The  absoluteness  of  this  repetition  of 
1  same  causes,  same  effects '  is  expressd  by  that  fundamental  pos- 
tulate of  science  and  of  experience,  the  Uniformity  of  Nature. 

The  problem  of  the  panpsychical  or  psychological  view  of 
nature  is  to  show  how  this  dead  uniformity  of  law  dissolves  on 
deeper  scrutiny  into  the  conception  of  a  free  order  of  living  sub- 
jects. At  the  outset,  one  fundamental  assumption  of  this  stand- 
point must  be  taken  account  of,  the  assumption,  viz.,  that  law  and 
uniformity,  as  commonly  interpreted,  are  incompatible  with  the 
individuality  of  nature.  On  this  view,  law  and  mind  are  ac- 
cepted as  ultimately  opposed.  Should  nature  prove  to  be  a  system 
of  determinate  causes  and  effects,  as  science  assumes,  there  would 
be  no  way  of  avoiding  the  conclusion  that  nature  is  thereby  de- 
nied all  teleological  and  individual  character.  It  is  important, 
then,  to  recognize  that  the  motive  of  this  interpretation  of  nature 
is  the  desire  to  avoid  the  supposed  logical  consequences  of  the 
point  of  view  of  the  natural  sciences. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  INTERPRETATION.  25 

The  notion  of  an  absolute  disjunction  between  purposive  indi- 
viduality and  mechanical  law  seems  rooted  in  the  conception  of 
consciousness  held  by  these  thinkers.  In  the  preceding  chapter 
it  was  noted  how  consciousness  proceeds  by  a  ceaseless  war  be- 
tween thought  and  experience;  how  thought  and  experience  re- 
main incommensurable.  Thought  can  grasp  only  abstract  uni- 
versals,  the  '  science '  and  '  laws '  of  things ;  the  concrete  reality 
forever  escapes.  This  incommensurability  of  thought  and  ex- 
perience finds  expression  in  the  disjunction  of  law  and  individu- 
ality. The  world  of  thought  is  correlated  with  a  dead  nature, 
skeletonized  by  abstract  mechanical  laws;  the  reign  of  concrete 
experience  with  a  sympathetic,  living,  non-mechanical  nature. 
The  problem  of  nature  is  accordingly  an  exclusive  alternative: 
either  nature  is  dead,  devoid  of  mind  and  dominated  by  rigid 
mechanical  law,  or  it  is  living,  conscious,  purposive,  non-mechan- 
ical, individual.  An  inquiry  into  the  justice  of  this  statement  of 
the  problem  as  a  complete  disjunction  between  law  and  individ- 
uality, between  the  mechanical  and  the  telelogical,  must  be  de- 
ferred for  final  criticism,  particularly  until  the  arguments  for  the 
logical  vkw  of  natural  law  have  been  considered  in  the  second 
part  of  this  study. 

These  panpsychical  thinkers  offer  a  wide  range  of  evidence  to 
establish  the  position  that  nature  is  throughout  a  realm  of  spon- 
taneous living  subjects.  Their  most  important  arguments,  to 
show  that  in  spite  of  an  appearance  of  rigidly  uniform  law,  reality 
is  really  a  society  of  free,  purposive  individuals,  are  here  sum- 
marized in  four  groups : 

i.  The  various  inferences  from  the  facts  of  continuity  may  be 
grouped  together  as  one  argument.  It  is  pointed  out,  for  in- 
stance, that  our  advances  in  knowledge  (and  notably  the  facts  of 
evolution)  have  shown  that  no  apparent  limit  can  be  placed  to 
the  presence  of  life  in  the  world.  With  the  development  of  sci- 
ence, analogies  between  the  organic  and  inorganic  realms  become 
constantly  more  numerous  and  striking.  Hence  it  does  not  seem 
unreasonable  to  suppose  that  gradations  of  life  may  extend  indefi- 
nitely beyond  our  powers  of  observation,  till  the  whole  material 
universe  be  conceived  as  a  vast  hierarchy  of  sentient  percipients. 


26    SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

With  Spinoza  it  is  maintained  that  "  all  individual  things  are  ani- 
mated."1 Moreover,  experience  seems  to  accord  with  Leibniz's 
principle  of  the  Identity  of  Indiscernibles ;  every  individual  ap- 
pears to  be  unique.  u  It  is  ...  contended  that  there  is  no  evidence 
that  any  two  beings  in  the  world  are  exactly  alike ;  which  is  just 
what  selfhood  or  personality  implies,  and  the  physicist's  concept 
of  atoms  denies."2  In  other  words,  the  facts  which  make  for 
continuity  are  all  facts  against  atomism  or  the  existence  of  homo- 
geneous individuals.  The  uniqueness  of  individuals  is  further 
exactly  what  is  implied  in  the  idea  of  personality.  Hence  all  evi- 
dence for  variety,  difference,  and  uniqueness  in  nature  may  be 
interpreted  as  weighing  against  the  scientific  conceptions  of  exact 
uniformities  and  atoms,  and  as  pointing  instead  to  unique  indi- 
viduals or  selves  as  the  ultimate  constituents  of  the  universe. 

Such  inferences  from  the  facts  of  continuity  have  undoubted 
value  in  emphasizing  the  essential  principle  of  idealism  that  the 
real  is  the  individual.  They  show  that  in  the  physical,  as  well  as 
in  the  mental  world,  barren  repetition  and  homogeneous  units  are 
abstract  fictions.  It  is  another  question  whether  individuality 
can  be  identified  with  personality,  and  nature  peopled  with  con- 
scious subjects.  No  less  open  to  doubt  is  the  interpretation  of 
the  Identity  of  Indiscernibles  with  personalistic  implications. 
Uniqueness  is  neither  essentially  the  essence  of  personality,  nor 
does  it  necessarily  imply  individuality  in  the  psychical  sense  of 
'  persons/  The  Identity  of  Indiscernibles  is  a  logical  principle. 
It  states  the  formal  truth  that  A  is  A,  that  things  which  are  not 
different  are  not  different.  In  other  words,  in  the  absence  of  any 
qualitative  differentia,  entities  are  not  distinguishable.  As  a 
purely  logical  postulate,  it  can  throw  no  light  on  the  kind  of 
reality  of  which  the  world  is  made. 

2.  The  second  group  of  arguments  seeks  to  overthrow  the  strict 
uniformity  and  objectivity  of  law  by  showing  that  the  constants 
and  uniformities  of  science  are  merely  methodological.  The  argu- 
ments take  the  form  of:  (a)  inferences  drawn  from  the  analogy 
of  physical  to  social  statistics;  (b)  other  conclusions  drawn  from 
the  special  purposes  and  limitations  of  scientific  method. 

iWard,  The  Realm  of  Ends,  p.  21. 
2  Ibid.,  p.  433. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  INTERPRETATION.  27 

(a)  First  of  all,  it  is  pointed  out  that  the  method  by  which  the 
uniformities  or  'laws '  of  nature  usually  receive  scientific  formula- 
tion is  the  statistical  method.  Now  the  statistical  method  aims 
at  the  discovery  of  averages,  and  neglects  the  individual.  Since 
statistical  averages  are  abstractions,  there  is  no  ground  for  hold- 
ing that  the  uniformities  they  express  apply  exactly  to  the  indi- 
vidual cases  under  them.  In  social  statistics,  for  instance,  the 
aggregate  results  may  remain  constant  in  spite  of  the  immense 
variety  of  motives  and  individual  differences  hidden  beneath.  By 
analogy  it  is  assumed  that  the  same  principle  must  hold  true  in 
the  statistics  of  the  natural  sciences.  The  inference  is  that  all 
scientific  uniformities  are  mere  approximations  and  conceal  be- 
neath them  the  same  spontaneity  and  variation  of  living  agents 
as  do  social  statistics.  Several  explanations  can  be  given  why  the 
scientist  himself  often  fails  to  grasp  the  reality  of  the  concrete* 
individuals  beneath  his  statistics,  and  why  he  mistakes  his  abstract 
uniformities  for  concrete  reality.  In  the  first  place,  his  methods 
are  often  extremely  indirect;  again,  he  usually  deals  with  indi- 
viduals far  removed  from  his  own  kind  and  in  numbers  far 
exceeding  those  of  social  statistics.  But — the  argument  runs — as 
regularity  was  seen  to  disguise  the  presence  of  free  living  agents 
in  social  statistics,  so  the  ground  underlying  all  statistical  uni- 
formities may  be  assumed  the  same.3 

This  is  one  of  the  chief  arguments  against  uniform  law.  Apart 
from  the  question  of  the  validity  of  the  analogy4  on  which  it  is 
based,  there  is  value  in  pointing  out  that  statistical  results  remain 
always  hypothetical  and  abstract.  Yet  it  must  be  recalled  that 
this  type  of  theory  has  not  stood  alone  in  performing  this  service. 
It  has  always  been  the  task  of  idealism  to  oppose  the  scientific 
dogmatism  which  mistakes  for  real  laws  abstract  simplifications 
hardened  into  concrete  fact.  Moreover,  though  the  argument 
shows  laws  based  on  statistical  averages  to  be  unreal  and  abstract, 
it  is  a  quite  unwarranted  assumption  to  imagine  that  this  some- 

3  Cf.  Ibid.,  pp.  65-67 ;  Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,  3rd  ed.,  Vol.  I,  pp. 
109-111.  Taylor,  Elements  of  Metaphysics,  pp.  221-223. 

*  Cf.  pp.  75  ff.  of  this  study  for  an  outline  of  Bosanquet's  brilliant  criticism 
of  the  analogy  on  which  this  argument  rests. 


28     SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

how  destroyed  the  possibility  of  all  logical  nexus  and  determinate 
system  in  nature. 

(b)  A  few  of  the  reasons  may  be  cited  which  show  that  scien- 
tific uniformities  are  merely  due  to  the  special  purposes  and 
limitations  of  the  sciences.  Science  is  regarded  as  largely  utili- 
tarian, as  seeking  the  'mastery  over  nature/  and  as  somehow 
discovering  uniformities  as  the  best  '  tools  '  for  the  purpose.5  Its 
results  are  further  circumscribed  by  imperfect  apparatus,  by 
human  limitations,  such  as  the  'time-span'  of  attention  and  the 
'  thresholds  of  sensibility  '  of  sense-organs.  Such  factors  account 
for  the  appearance  of  uniformity  which  science  believes  it 
discovers.6 

To  such  argument  it  may  be  conceded  that  uniform  laws  often 
result  from  the  application  of  apparently  pragmatic  methods,  and 
that  we  can  never  rule  out  or  entirely  compensate  for  our  sub- 
jective limitations.  Yet  even  though  this  element  of  subjectivity 
remains  in  all  particular  laws,  the  question  is  whether  the  prin- 
ciple of  uniform  law  itself  does  not  reach  beyond  our  psycho- 
logical demands  and  limitations.  We  could  not  be  finally  satis- 
fied to  explain  law  and  the  whole  structure  of  science  as  subjective 
and  methodological.  Science  and  its  principles  seem  to  represent 
too  vast  a  realm  of  experience;  their  claims  to  objective  reality 
are  too  strong  for  denial. 

3.  A  third  type  of  argument  attempts  to  discredit  the  principle 
of  the  Uniformity  of  Nature  by  showing  it  to  be  no  more  than  an 
ideal  postulate  of  our  thinking.  Of  course  Uniformity  cannot 
claim  validity  as  a  generalization  from  experience,  because  all  pos- 
sible cases  under  it  could  never  be  verified.  Nor  can  Uniformity 
be  an  axiom,  for  the  reason  that  it  is  quite  possible  to  think  of  a 
synthetic  unity  connected  otherwise  than  by  uniform  law.7  Uni- 
formity must  be  an  ideal,  an  '  as  if/  some  sort  of  heuristic  episte- 
mological  postulate.  The  truth  of  this  can  be  shown  by  tracing 
the  rise  of  the  principle  from  its  origins  in  the  social  consciousness. 

6  Royce,  The  World  and  the  Individual,  2nd  ser.,  p.   193. 

6  Taylor,  Elements  of  Metaphysics,  pp.  225-227. 

7  For  instance,  Ideologically.     Op.  cit.,  p.  223. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL   INTERPRETATION, 


29 


It  is  important  to  take  up  certain  of  these  views  in  more  detail. 
First,  Ward  undoubtedly  regards  natural  law  in  general  as  some- 
thing more  than  a  mere  pragmatic  or  empirical  postulate.  To 
his  mind  the  concept  of  uniform  natural  law  is  "  an  epistomolog- 
ical  condition  of  the  possibility  of  scientific  experience."8  As 
Kant  held,  it  is  a  logical  postulate  necessarily  presupposed  in  our 
experience  of  nature.9  But  Ward  does  not  stop  with  Kant.  He 
discovers  that  Uniformity  itself  rests  in  turn  upon  a  still  more 
fundamental  condition  of  experience,  viz.,  the  existence  of  a 
plurality  of  selves.  According  to  Ward,  the  ultimate  pre-condi- 
tion of  the  world  is  a  society  of  conscious  subjects.10  Historical 
evidence  confirms  the  view  that  society  is  fundamental  to  the  laws 
of  nature.  Natural  law  grew  out  of  civil  law;11  primitive  man 
read  a  divine  order  into  nature  by  direct  analogy  from  the  law  and 
order  binding  men  together.  The  Uniformity  of  Nature  is  then 
an  epistemological  postulate  based  on  the  presupposition  of  an 
ultimate  order  of  society.  But  even  here  pluralism  cannot  rest. 
The  ultimate  plurality  of  interacting  subjects  which  Ward  pre- 
supposes is  not  a  society ;  it  is  only  coining  to  be  a  social  order 
through  possessing  a  tendency  to  aggregation  of  individual  ends. 
It  is  orderliness  developing  out  of  chaos.  As  Ward  describes  it: 
"A  plurality  of  conative  beings  at  first  casually  interacting  in 
pursuance  of  their  several  particular  and  immediate  impulses 
gradually  come  to  have  ends  and  continually  widening  ends  in 
common."12  Reality,  defined  by  Ward  as  a  plurality  of  selves,  is 
developing  through  interaction  from  chaos  to  law  and  order.  The 
Uniformity  of  Nature  is  an  epistemological  postulate  based  on  a 
tendency  to  social  order  in  the  ultimate  agents. 

Royce  traces  Uniformity  from  social  consciousness.  Unlike 
Ward,  he  emphasizes  it  rather  as  a  matter  of  social  utility  than 
as  an  epistemological  necessity.  The  principle  has  authority  be- 
cause of  the  great  importance  of  uniform  laws  to  our  social  in- 
terests. Industrial  art,  commerce,  and  social  custom  served  orig- 

8  Ward,  Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,  3rd  ed.,  Vol.  II,  p.  220. 

9  Cf.  Ibid.,  p.  250. 

10  Cf.  p.  15  of  this  study. 

11  Ward,  Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,  3rd  ed.,  Vol.  II,  pp.  249,  251. 

12  Ward,  The  Realm  of  Ends,  p.  148. 


30    SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

inally  to  turn  man's  attention  to  uniformities  in  nature.  All 
organization  of  life  obviously  depends  upon  the  cooperation  of 
many  persons  in  adopting  the  same  plans.  So  the  discovery  of 
uniformities  in  nature  was  early  perceived  to  be  the  condition  for 
organizing  social  custom  and  plans  of  action.13  It  was  recog- 
nized that  some  common  ground,  some  invariant  *  between '  my- 
self and  my  fellows,  was  necessary  in  order  that  we  might  com- 
municate and  organize.  This  common  basis  of  communication, 
this  '  between/  came  to  be  thought  of  as  nature.  The  one  acces- 
sible revelation  of  nature  was  through  the  discovery  of  order- 
systems  of  phenomena,  possessing  invariant  relations  or  laws. 
These  series  were  further  considered  'as  if  observable  to  an 
ideal  totality  of  human  experience.14  Such  in  general  was  the 
process  by  which  nature  came  to  be  regarded  as  "  the  socially  sig- 
nificant tool,"  whose  usefulness  rested  in  uniformities.  But  while 
in  one  sense  acquiring  its  value  in  experience,  in  another  sense 
uniformity  has  its  value  as  a  pre-condition  of  experience,  as  Kant 
held.  In  other  words,  Uniformity  appears  both  as  a  pragmatic 
and  as  an  epistemological  postulate. 

Both  Ward  and  Royce  conceive  Uniformity  at  once  as  a  pre- 
supposition fundamental  to  experience,  and  as  having  its  origin 
within  experience  in  social  consciousness  sustained  by  practical 
motives.  Whether  these  two  views  are  compatible  is  a  further 
question.15  Both  seem  to  imply  a  denial  of  the  organic  character 
of  reality.  To  regard  Uniformity,  for  instance,  as  an  epistemolog- 
ical necessity  is  to  place  its  validity  in  some  absolute  prius  inde- 
pendent of  the  process  of  experience.  While  to  interpret  it  as  a 
pragmatic  hypothesis  within  experience  is  to  deny  its  power  to 
throw  light  upon  the  permanent  constitution  of  reality.  In  both 
cases  the  conception  of  reality  as  organic  system  is  abandoned, 
and  the  attempt  to  envisage  experience  as  a  complete  nexus  of 
cause  and  effect  given  up.  That  the  failure  to  grasp  Uniformity 
in  its  true  sense  as  logical  principle  does  really  commit  these 

13  Royce,  The  World  and  the  Individual,  2nd  ser.,  p.  193  ff. 
i*Ibid.,  p.  185.     By  the  'as  if/  the  social  test  and  that  of  presentation  to 
consciousness  are  kept  in  sublimated  form, 
is  Cf.  pp.  87  ff.  of  this  study. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  INTERPRETATION.  3I 

writers  to  a  denial  of  the  Law  of  Sufficient  Reason  can  be  easily 
verified  by  referring  to  their  own  statements  regarding  causality.16 

4.  The  fourth  type  of  argument  may  be  said  to  be  from  the 
unreal  to  the  real  categories  of  nature.  The  appearance  of  the 
strict  uniformity  of  nature  is  held  to  be  overthrown  by  the  dis- 
covery of  truer,  more  fundamental  categories  in  nature.  These 
categories  further  are  interpreted  as  the  modes  of  behavior  of 
mind.  The  world,  from  this  point  of  view,  is  divided  into  two 
realms,  one  of  which  proves  to  be  the  mere  appearance  of  the 
other.  For  Ward,  these  divisions  are  known  as  the  scientific  and 
historical  worlds,  otherwise  as  the  Realm  of  Nature  and  the 
Realm  of  Ends.  For  Royce,  they  are  the  worlds  of  Description 
and  of  Appreciation. 

The  categories  of  the  world  of  science  and  descriptions  are 
found  to  be  abstract  and  unreal.  Such  categories  do  not  hold 
true  literally  when  brought  to  the  test  of  experience.  Their 
rigid  absoluteness  proves  only  hypothetical,  ideal,  unverifiable. 
"  They  conceive  the  physical  world  as  if  it  were  so,  or  so  observ- 
able when  it  is  not  so  observable."17  However  these  are  not  the 
only  possible  viewpoints  under  which  experience  can  be  brought. 
Indeed,  the  very  hypothetical,  dependent  character  of  these  cate- 
gories implies  that  they  are  only  means  to  ends,  and  points  to  a 
more  fundamental  reality. 

According  to  Ward,  when  we  examine  the  conceptions  and  cate- 
gories of  science,  they  break  down  completely.  The  real  world 
is  behind  and  beyond  them ;  it  is  the  historical  world.  The  truth 
of  science  itself  presupposes  a  world  of  free,  conscious  subjects. 
For  law  and  order  are  only  intelligible  as  the  outcome  of  intelli- 
gence ;  and  intelligence  we  know  only  as  proceeding  from  inter- 
acting subjects.  True  law,  then,  is  not  discoverable  in  scientific 
formulas,  but  in  the  living  agents  which  they  presuppose.  Every 

!6  Ward,  Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,  3rd  ed.,  Vol.  II,  p.  241  :  "  Causation 
and  causal  uniformity  are  entirely  distinct.  An  efficient  cause  is  not  neces- 
sarily uniform  in  its  action."  (Italics  mine.)  Royce's  whole  metaphysics, 
which  makes  the  spontaneous,  indeterministic  principle  of  Will  fundamental  to 
causation,  implies  that  cause  and  effect  are  not  ultimately  binding.  Cf. 
Taylor,  Elements  of  Metaphysics,  p.  223. 

17  Royce,  The  World  and  the  Individual,  2nd  sen,  p.  217. 


32     SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

individual  subject  is  a  real,  a  'living  law.'18  And  through  the 
interaction  of  these  selves,  'historical  wholes,'  such  as  politics, 
industry  and  art,  take  their  rise.  The  highest  category  remains 
the  Good  ;19  and  toward  it  the  whole  historical  order  moves  with 
growing  orderliness  and  law.  In  brief,  the  categories  of  science 
are  unreal,  while  the  real  categories  are  found  in  the  world  of 
free  agents;  "the  actual  is  wholly  historical."20 

On  Royce's  view,  the  world  of  science  or  Description  gives 
place  to  the  world  of  selves  or  Appreciation.  But,  unlike  Ward, 
Royce  does  not  make  the  two  worlds  wholly  exclusive.  Instead, 
he  finds  certain  processes  common  to  both.  These  are  certain 
objective  laws  of  nature,  which  are  literally  verifiable  both  by 
science  and  by  common  sense.  Royce  discovers  four  of  these 
categories  extending  throughout  the  whole  behavior  of  mind  and 
matter.  They  are  the  principles  of:  (a)  irreversibility,21  (b) 
communication,22  (c)  habit,23  and  (d)  the  whole  class  of  evolu- 
tionary processes  themselves.  All  these  appear  to  be  "literally 
verifiable  but  not  literally  constant  laws  of  observable  Nature."2* 
The  impression  which  the  four  laws  together  convey  to  Royce 
(apart  from  metaphysical  considerations)25  is  that  rigid  mathe- 
matical formulas  do  not  truly  represent  nature's  operations. 
Mind  and  matter  seem  to  be  continuous.  Both  appear  to  be  parts 
of  nature,  "  phenomenal  signs  of  a  vast  conscious  process,  whose 
relation  to  Time  varies  vastly,  but  whose  general  characters  are 
throughout  the  same."26  Nature  (including  man)  is  discovered 
to  be  a  huge  realm  of  finite  consciousness  full  of  fluent  processes. 

!8  Ward,  Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,  3rd  ed.,  Vol.  II,  p.  281. 

19  Ward,  The  Realm .  of  Ends,  pp.   18-19. 

20  Ward,  Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,  Vol.  II,  p.  281. 

21  E.g.,  the  law  that  the  organism  grows  old,  but  never  young.     The  World 
and  the  Individual,  2nd  ser.,  p.  219. 

22  E.g.,  as  exemplified  by  the  vast  series  of  so-called  '  wave-movements  '  in 
nature.     C.  S.  Peirce  has  also  used  these  processes  as  "  a  basis  for  a  remark- 
able hypothesis  regarding  evolution."     Op.  cit.,  p.  220. 

23  Habit  seems   to   appear   in  the  material   world   as   the  tendency  to   the 
stability  of  systems.     Op.  cit.,  p.  221.     Also  emphasized  by  Peirce. 

2*  Op.  cit.,  p.  223. 

25  Ibid.,  p.  223.     Royce,  however,  states  later  that  his  '  real '  reasons  for 
holding  some  such  hypothesis  are  philosophical   (pp.  234-241). 
20  Op.  cit.,  p.  226. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  INTERPRETATION.  33 

The  tendencies  of  nature's  processes  are  two-fold.  In  one  direc- 
tion they  make  for  repetition  and  relatively  stable  habits;  in  the 
other,  for  the  irrevocable,  for  novelty  and  the  pursuit  of  ideal 
goals. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  estimate  the  value  of  such  an  elaborate 
array  of  evidence  as  Royce  presents  against  uniformity  and  in 
favor  of  panpsychism.  The  first  necessity  would  be  a  rigorous 
test  of  the  scientific  '  facts '  themselves,  before  passing  judgment 
on  the  theoretical  use  made  of  them.  The  sharp  distinctions 
drawn  between  tendencies  to  novelty  and  tendencies  to  repetition, 
between  natural  laws  as  pragmatic  social  devices  and  as  objective 
constitutive  processes  in  nature,  suggest  dualism  in  the  view. 
All  suggestion  is  lacking  as  to  how  these  opposing  tendencies  are 
reconciled  in  nature.  Of  the  hypothesis  as  a  whole,  one  is  half 
inclined  to  agree  with  Dewey's  remark:  that  he  cannot  believe 
"that  such  speculative  constructions  with  no  further  basis  than 
certain  vague  analogies,  involving  also  the  highly  precarious  pro- 
position that  certain  'truths'  about  irreversible  processes  are 
much  more  literal  and  actual  in  their  objective  validity  than  are 
mechanical  laws,  do  anything  but  bring  philosophy  into  dis- 
repute."27 

Both  Ward  and  Royce,  then,  hold  uniformity  to  be  overthrown 
by  the  discovery  of  truer,  more  fundamental  categories  in  nature. 
For  Ward,  these  are  the  categories  of  history,  categories  that  ex- 
press the  variety  and  spontaneity  of  finite  consciousness.  Reality 
is  never  truly  revealed  to  the  scientific  standpoint,  but  only  to  the 
philosophical  or  historical.  Speaking  of  the  historical  view  as 
fundamental,  Ward  says :  "  With  experience  in  the  concrete,  we 
can  deal  satisfactorily  in  no  other  way.  ...  In  history  ...  we 
find  no  mere  repetitions,  no  absolute  fixity,  small  scope  for  meas- 
urement or  for  mathematics,  the  indispensable  of  all  'scientific' 
conception;  yet  .  .  .  the  historical  is  what  we  understand  best." 
"Yes,  the  actual  is  wholly  historical."28  For  Ward,  free  indi- 
vidual subjects  and  their  unique  modes  of  behavior  are  the  real 

27  J.  Dewey,  Philosophical  Review,  Vol.  XI,  p.  398,  footnote  i. 

28  Ward,  Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,  Vol.  II,  pp.  280-281. 


34 


SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 


laws.29  For  Royce,  on  the  other  hand,  there  remain  besides  finite 
selves  and  their  modes  of  action,  certain  '  objective '  processes  for 
which  no  finite  mind  at  least  is  responsible.  These  processes, 
while  not  exact  uniformities,  are  of  such  a  character  that  they  can 
be  verified  by  science  and  catalogued  by  descriptive  methods. 
They  appear  to  be  constitutive  laws  of  nature.  Owing  to  them, 
the  standpoint  of  science  is  not  wholly  superseded  by  the  world 
of  selves  or  Appreciation. 

Some  characteristics  of  the  four  preceding  arguments  against 
uniformity  may  be  summarized.  The  disjunction  underlying 
them  all  was :  either  nature  is  subject  to  uniform  law,  and  if  so,  is 
dead  and  purposeless,  or  it  is  not  ruled  by  uniform  law  and  is 
conscious,  free  and  purposive.  Granted  the  issue  could  be  stated 
successfully  as  such  an  alternative,  the  disproof  of  one  position 
would  be  equivalent  to  proof  of  the  other.  The  fundamental 
question  was  accordingly:  Is  such  an  alternative  essentially  in- 
volved ?  That  it  was  seemed  open  to  serious  doubt.  In  fact,  the 
disjunction  might  well  arise  from  the  latent  dualism  of  this  type 
of  philosophy,  which  assumes  thought  and  concrete  fact  to  be 
initially  sundered,  and  the  mind  confronted  with  the  endless  task 
of  getting  them  together.  On  such  a  view,  the  relation  of  thought 
and  fact  remains  an  external  relation.  If  the  assumption  of  a 
disjunction  between  them  is  accepted  at  the  start,  the  separation 
between  law  and  the  individual  follows  naturally  of  itself,  along 
with  a  disjunction  of  such  corollaries  as  mechanism  and  teleology, 
repetition  and  creation.  On  the  other  hand,  once  the  reality  of 
the  fundamental  disjunction  is  laid  open  to  question,  the  value  of 
the  preceding  arguments  diminishes.  If  the  alternative  is  not  a 
true  one,  the  disproof  of  general  law  in  no  wise  constitutes  a 
proof  of  spontaneity;  nor  is  any  necessary  connection  implied 
between  the  refutation  of  uniformity  and  the  proof  of  free  in- 
dividuality. 

Two  metaphysical  theories  are  assumed  to  correspond  to  the 
respective  sides  of  the  alternative  between  uniform  law  and  free 
individuality ;  these  theories  are  mechanistic  naturalism  and  teleo- 

29  Question  of  the  relation  of  finite  subjects  to  the  chief  subject  (God)  is 
here  omitted. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  INTERPRETATION.  35 

logical  idealism.  By  virtue  of  the  alternative,  all  argument 
against  the  uniformity  of  nature  is  taken  at  the  same  time  as 
discrediting  mechanistic  naturalism.  Further,  all  disproof  of 
naturalism  becomes  proof  for  teleological  idealism  of  a  subjective 
kind.  Ward's  Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,  for  instance,  pro- 
ceeds throughout  on  the  assumption  of  this  alternative.  It  offers 
a  disproof  of  mechanistic  naturalism  as  constituting  a  proof  of 
teleological  idealism  of  a  certain  type.  Such  a  method,  of  course, 
assumes  double  liabilities  at  the  outset.  If  its  argument  against 
naturalism  fails,  its  idealism  stands  by  its  own  assumption  with- 
out support.  Again,  should  the  disjunction  upon  which  the  posi- 
tion is  based  prove  an  unreal  alternative,  the  whole  argument  is 
thrown  open  to  question. 

Royce,  no  less  than  Ward,  accepts  the  final  disjunction  between 
idealism  and  naturalism,  mind  and  matter.  But  he  argues  for  the 
former  position  more  positively  in  its  own  right,  and  less  by  the 
method  of  exclusion,  than  does  Ward  in  the  volume  above  men- 
tioned. It  is  worth  remark  that  Royce  himself  describes  his 
argument  on  nature  in  the  second  series  of  The  World  and  the 
Individual  as  'complementary'30  to  that  of  Ward.  This  is  to 
say,  apparently,  that  while  Ward  reaches  the  panpsychic  theory  of 
nature  through  a  criticism  of  scientific  conceptions,  Royce  ad- 
vances through  an  elimination  of  rival  ontologies  to  his  Fourth 
Conception  of  Being,  from  which  he  deduces  his  'hypothesis' 
about  nature.  At  the  same  time,  Royce  attempts  to  guarantee 
his  hypothesis  doubly  by  showing  not  merely  its  metaphysical 
warrant,  but  also  that  it  is  most  in  accord  with  the  scientific  facts. 
But  it  must  be  remembered  that,  for  both  thinkers,  idealism  and 
naturalism,  mind  and  matter,  individuality  and  law,  are  conceived 
in  complete  severance. 

The  side  of  the  disjunction  which  they  wish  to  discredit  en- 
tirely is  that  of  naturalism  and  law.  This  of  course  involves  a 
denial  of  every  form  of  the  mechanical  view  of  nature.  For  it 
is  in  conceiving  nature  as  a  mechanism  that  naturalism,  the  pos- 
tulates of  Uniformity,  causal  determinism  and  law,  reach  their 
fullest  expression.  The  denial  of  mechanism  carries  with  it 

30  Royce,  The  World  and  the  Individual,  2nd  ser.,  p.  xi. 


36     SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

wider  implications  than  are  evident  at  a  glance.  Mechanism, 
aside  from  the  general  sense  in  which  it  is  synonymous  with  the 
Uniformity  of  Nature,  has  other  meanings.  All  of  these  the 
psychological  view  is  forced  to  deny,  (i)  In  its  narrowest  con- 
notation, mechanism  identifies  nature  with  quantitative  formulae 
of  space,  time,  motion,  and  mass.  Mechanism  is  thus  obviously 
open  to  the  charge  of  materialism,  and  has  been  admirably  criti- 
cized by  these  idealists,  especially  by  Ward  in  the  first  volume  of 
Naturalism  and  Agnosticism.  (2)  In  another  important  sense, 
mechanism  signifies  the  operation  of  all  the  processes  of  evolution 
in  accordance  with  a  rigidly  necessary  and  universal  law  of 
natural  selection.  The  concerted  attack  of  these  thinkers  upon 
the  interpretation  of  evolution  as  a  mechanical  process  will 
shortly  be  considered  in  detail.  (3)  Mechanism,  in  its  most  com- 
prehensive meaning,  is  sometimes  made  identical  with  logical 
system.  Mind  is  regarded  (by  such  a  writer  as  Bosanquet,  for 
instance)  as  the  ultimate  type  of  system  governed  by  necessary 
relations,  a  system  which  supervenes  upon  nature  and  reinter- 
prets the  whole  as  logical  mechanism.  But  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  writers  now  being  criticized,  logic  and  pure  thought 
are  abstract  and  unable  to  grasp  nature;  therefore  mechanism  in 
an  ultimate  sense  must  be  totally  denied.  Moreover,  psycholog- 
ical evidence  can  be  used  to  show  that  mind  is  not  a  mechanism ; 
the  consciousness  of  free  will,  of  creative  purpose,  along  with  the 
great  variety  and  range  of  human  behavior  wholly  beyond  cer- 
tain prediction,  has  great  weight  with  these  thinkers.  In  brief,  all 
forms  of  mechanism  are  rejected  from  the  psychological  point 
of  view. 

The  type  of  mechanism  these  writers  have  been,  perhaps,  most 
at  pains  to  refute,  has  been  the  conception  of  evolution  as  a  vast 
mechanical  process  governed  by  rigid  laws  of  natural  selection. 
In  general  their  objections  to  the  mechanical  view  of  evolution  are 
as  follows :  ( I )  Certain  processes  in  evolution  are  irreversible,31 
and  hence  unaccountable  on  a  mechanical  interpretation  of  the 
world.  (2)  Any  doctrine  of  evolution  grounded  on  some  formal 

31  The  second  law  of  thermodynamics,  for  instance,  excludes  reversibility. 
Cf.  Royce,  The  World  and  the  Individual,  2nd  ser.,  p.  218. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL   INTERPRETATION.  37 

law,  such  as  the  Conservation  of  Energy,32  is  based  on  a  merely 
hypothetical  postulate,  whose  truth  can  never  be  empirically  estab- 
lished. (3)  Such  rigid,  necessary  law  must  fail  to  account  for 
variety,  quality,  and  all  the  spontaneity  and  richness  of  history, 
life,  and  art.33  (4)  Evolution  can  only  be  interpreted  teleolog- 
ically,  as  a  pursuit  of  ideal  goals.34 

The  assumption  underlying  this  criticism  is  again  that  of  a  dis- 
junction between  uniform  law  and  free  individuality.  If  evolu- 
tion and  nature  be  governed  by  uniform  law,  it  is  assumed  they 
cannot  be  teleological,  spontaneous  and  creative.  Nature,  for 
these  writers,  if  mechanical,  cannot  be  teleological.  And  their 
concern  is  to  conserve  the  rights  of  the  teleological  at  the  expense 
of  mechanism.  It  is  necessary  to  examine  in  detail  several  of 
these  teleological  theories  of  evolution  which  are  proposed  to 
supplant  the  mechanical.  It  is  in  hypotheses  of  evolution  that  the 
thinkers  under  discussion  advance  their  special  theories  regard- 
ing natural  law.  By  comparing  these  hypotheses,  the  common 
principles  underlying  them  must  clearly  emerge. 

Ward's  principal  reasons  for  maintaining  a  teleological  view  of 
evolution  appear  to  be  three:  (i)  It  is  inconceivable  that  the 
cosmos  should  be  the  product  of  absolute  chance  or  fortuitous 
variation  persisting  in  chaos,  as  a  non-teleological  view  would 
have  to  assume;  its  order  must  imply  an  indwelling  life  and 
mind.35  (2)  Natural  selection,  though  itself  a  non-teleological 
concept  in  biological  evolution,  is  grounded  in  two  principles 
which  imply  teleology  and  free  psychic  life :  viz.,  self-preservation 
and  subjective  selection.36  Now  since  purpose  is  so  manifest  in 
biological  evolution,  continuity  and  the  consiliance  of  evidence 
would  suggest  a  teleological  basis  throughout  cosmic  evolution. 
While  this  line  of  reasoning  is  not  clearly  developed  by  Ward 
(owing  to  his  interest  in  differentiating  organic  and  inorganic 
nature),  it  is  manifestly  implied  by  his  general  position.  (3)  On 

32  E.g.,  Herbert  Spencer's  theory  of  evolution. 

33  Ward,  Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,  Lect.  X. 

34Royce,  The  World  and  the  Individual,  2nd  ser.,  p.  231 ;  Taylor,  Elements 
of  Metaphysics,  p.  268. 

35  Ward,  Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,  3rd  ed.,  Vol.  I,  p.  302. 

36  Op.  cit.,  Vol.  II,  p.  92. 


3g    SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

the  assumption  of  his  metaphysics  that  the  world  is  fundamentally 
a  plurality  of  interacting  subjects,  Ward  maintains  a  teleological 
evolution  to  be  an  a  priori  implication  of  this  interaction.  This 
teleological  evolution,  he  further  describes  as  of  a  statistical  and 
epigenetic  type.  For  through  the  contact  of  individuals  intent 
upon  self-preservation  and  self-betterment  would  arise  a  tendency 
to  replace  contingency  by  definite  progression,  a  tendency  to  the 
development  of  genuinely  new  and  higher  forms  from  the  lower. 
"  To  the  pluralist .  .  .  the  so-called  evolution  of  the  world  is  really 
epigenesis,  creative  synthesis;  it  implies  continual  new  begin- 
nings, the  result  of  the  mutual  conflict  and  cooperation  of  agents, 
all  of  whom,  though  in  varying  degrees,  act  spontaneously  or 
freely."37 

The  first  striking  implication  of  this  view  is  that  evolution  and 
law  are  themselves  products  of  the  process,  not  presuppositions. 
Pluralism,  as  Ward  says,  "essays  ...  to  start  from  chaos"  and 
"  to  explain  how  this  orderliness  has  itself  been  developed."38 
Out  of  the  original  chaos  and  conflict  of  individuals  pursuing 
their  immediate  impulses,  there  gradually  emerges  an  order  and 
regularity.  This  tendency  to  a  definite  progression  toward  uni- 
formity out  of  heterogeneous  ends  is  best  described  as  of  a  sta- 
tistical type.  Statistical  formulae,  perhaps,  as  Lotze  said,  "  can 
yet  claim  to  express  the  true  law  of  history  as  freed  from  dis- 
turbing individual  influences."39  Though  inapplicable  to  indi- 
vidual cases,  they  record  the  acceleration  of  real  historical  prog- 
ress. Uniformities  of  a  statistical  kind  arise  from  the  formation 
of  automatic  habits  and  customs  in  the  behavior  of  the  interacting 
subjects.  Routine  and  law  in  the  world  can  be  explained  on  the 
analogy  of  habit  and  heredity  in  the  individual,  of  custom  and 
tradition  in  society.40  They  are,  perhaps,  as  C.  S.  Peirce  sug- 
gests, effete  mind  becoming  physical  law.  Still  it  remains  a  diffi- 
cult task  for  the  pluralist  to  show  why  law,  which  he  explains 
metaphysically  as  the  intercourse  of  individuals  in  some  sort  of 

37  Ward,  The  Realm  of  Ends,  pp.  270-271. 

38  Ibid.,  p.  69. 

39  Quoted  by  Ward,  Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,  3rd  ed.,  Vol.  I,  p.  in. 

40  Ward,  The  Realm  of  Ends,  p.  74. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  INTERPRETATION.  39 

panpsychical  society,  should  take  on  genetically  a  statistical  and 
impersonal  form.  Most  often  Ward  tries  to  meet  the  difficulty 
by  treating  the  statistical  form  of  natural  laws  as  a  mere  sub- 
jective and  pragmatic  device  for  gaining  an  appearance  of  con- 
stancy by  ignoring  individual  differences.41  Less  frequently  he 
seems  to  recognize  natural  laws  as  objective,  as  somehow  em- 
bodying the  result  of  experience  ;42  and  by  their  statistical  formu- 
lation expressing  the  essentially  contingent  collocation  between 
nature  as  fixed  (naturanaturata)  and  as  fluent  (natura  naturans), 
and  the  tendency  of  the  world  away  from  chaos  toward  order  in 
historical  progression.43 

But  disregarding  for  the  present  the  general  difficulties  of 
Ward's  view,  attention  is  called  to  the  following  assumptions: 
(i)  that  evolution  and  its  laws  originally  proceed  from  the  cona- 
tions of  conscious  subjects;  (2)  that  spontaneity  and  contingency 
are  everywhere  present;  (3)  that  there  is  a  general  tendency  of 
a  statistical  type  away  from  chaos  and  chance  toward  order  and 
progression. 

Royce  objects  to  mechanical  theories  of  nature  on  the  ground 
that  they  prove  neither  rationally  nor  empirically  well-founded. 
Mechanical  theories  are,  by  their  nature,  too  exact  for  absolutely 
precise  verification.  Yet  they  demand  this  verification ;  hence  they 
involve  a  contradiction.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  theory  of 
nature  which  can  be  verified  as  literally  true,  although  only  ap- 
proximately. This  is  the  statistical  view.  Evolutionary  processes 
seem  to  be  expressible  in  this  form.  They  appear  to  have  ob- 
jective reality  in  the  nature  of  things,  and  to  be  grounded  in  three 
vast  tendencies,  viz.:  to  aggregation,  to  selection,  and  habit. 
These  three  tendencies  are  wholly  untranslatable  into  mechanical 
terms;  they  are  only  definable  statistically.  The  principle  of 
aggregation,  the  chief  of  these,  seems  to  mark  a  tendency  of 
nature  toward  an  unconscious  teleology.  Royce  gives  the  follow- 
ing description  of  this  fundamental  character  of  evolution:  "In 
brief,  the  evolution  of  stars,  of  elements,  of  social  orders,  of 

41  Ibid.,  pp.  65-67. 

42  Ibid.,  p.  77. 

43  Ibid.,  pp.  76-81. 


40  SOME  MODERN   CONCEPTIONS   OF  NATURAL   LAW. 

minds  and  of  moral  processes,  apparently  illustrates  the  statistical 
fecundity  of  nature's  principal  tendency — the  tendency  to  that 
mutual  assimilation.  ...  It  is  this  principle  of  the  fecundity  of 
aggregation  which  seems  to  be  the  natural  expression,  in  statis- 
tical terms,  for  the  tendency  of  nature  towards  what  seems  to  be 
a  sort  of  unconscious  teleology — toward  a  purposiveness  whose 
precise  outcome  no  finite  being  seems  precisely  to  intend."4* 
Such  an  evolution  tends  away  from  chance  and  disorder  toward 
orderly  cooperation  and  what  appears  to  be  the  teleological. 
"  Whether  the  whole  world  is  ultimately  and  consciously  telelog- 
ical  or  not,"  says  Royce,  "this  view  of  nature  would  of  course 
be  unable  to  decide."45  But  it  would  emphasize  the  similarity  of 
the  tendency  to  orderly  cooperation  found  in  the  highest  spiritual 
life  with  that  found  everywhere  in  nature.  But,  again,  as  in  the 
case  of  Ward,  one  is  left  wondering  how  the  statistical  view  of 
law  as  approximate  and  impersonal,  is  finally  reconcilable  with  a 
metaphysical  panpsychism  which  interprets  law  as  the  unique  re- 
lations of  persons. 

In  comparing  the  foregoing  views  of  Ward  and  Royce,  certain 
marked  similarities  may  be  noted.  For  both  evolutionary  pro- 
cesses are  in  some  sense  constitutive  (Ward  had  said  a  priori). 
They  mark  a  growing  tendency  from  chaos  to  orderliness.  Yet 
because  absolute  order  is  still  unachieved,  there  remains  in  them 
an  element  of  chance  and  contingency.  In  so  far  as  they  are 
scientific  laws,  they  appear  to  be  of  the  statistical  type.  Lastly, 
evolutionary  processes  are  telelogical,  and  have  (Ward),  or  ap- 
pear to  have  (Royce),46  their  source  in  conscious  mind. 

But  in  order  to  judge  the  full  significance  of  these  two  theories, 
it  seems  necessary  to  offer  a  brief  sketch  of  the  views  of  a  third 
writer.  This  view  furnishes,  as  it  were,  a  basis  of  interpretation 

44  Royce,  Science,  Vol.  XXXIX,  p.  565. 

45  Apparently   Royce   would   hold   that   the   existence   of  an   Absolute   con- 
sciousness  (to  which  the  purpose  of  the  whole  would  be  present)   could  only 
be  established  on  metaphysical  grounds.     The  consistency  of  Royce's  position 
seems  to  demand  such  an  Absolute  consciousness. 

46  While  both  Ward  and  Royce  agree  in  resolving  nature  into  a  realm  of 
finite  subjects,  Ward's  makes  finite  subjects  themselves  the  source   of  evolu- 
tion, whereas  Royce  would  presumably  refer  the  laws  of  evolutionary  processes 
to  a  source  in  the  Absolute. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL   INTERPRETATION.  4I 

of  the  whole  panpsychical  theory  of  evolution,  by  carrying  it  to 
its  logical  conclusions.  The  cosmological  hypothesis  of  C.  S. 
Peirce47  reveals  the  implications  of  the  foregoing  theories  by  de- 
veloping them  to  their  radical  extreme. 

In  beginning,  Peirce  gives  four  reasons  for  holding  an  explana- 
tion of  evolution  on  mechanical  principles  to  be  illogical.  ( I )  The 
original  principle  of  growth,  he  asserts,  arose  from  an  infini- 
tesimal germ  accidentally  started ;  hence  evolution  demands  no 
extraneous  (i.e.,  mechanical)  causes.  (2)  Law  itself  must  also 
be  a  result  of  evolution.  (3)  Arbitrary  heterogeneity  is  the  most 
characteristic  feature  of  the  universe ;  but  it  is  impossible  that  me- 
chanical law  should  produce  such  heterogeneity  from  its  homo- 
geneity. (4)  The  Conservation  of  Energy  implies  the  reversibility 
of  mechanical  laws.  But,  on  such  a  principle,  growth  is  inex- 
plicable.48 

For  a  mechanical  evolution,  Peirce  substitutes  what  he  calls 
'  agapism '  or  evolution  by  '  creative  love.'  The  developmental 
principle  in  such  an  evolution  appears  to  be  pure  feeling,  some- 
how identified  with  chance.  Peirce  gives  the  following  striking 
description  of  the  evolution  of  the  universe  according  to  agapism : 
"  In  the  beginning, — infinitely  remote, — there  was  a  chaos  of  un- 
personalized  feeling.  .  .  .  This  feeling,  sporting  here  and  there  in 
pure  arbitrariness,  would  have  started  the  germ  of  a  generalizing 
tendency.  Its  other  sportings  would  be  evanescent,  but  this  would 
have  a  growing  virtue.  Thus,  the  tendency  to  habit  would  be 
started ;  and  from  this  with  the  other  principles  of  evolution  all 
the  regularities  of  the  universe  would  be  evolved.  At  the  same 
time,  however,  an  element  of  pure  chance  survives  and  will  re- 
main until  the  world  becomes  an  absolutely  perfect,  rational,  and 
symmetrical  system,  in  which  mind  is  at  last  crystallized  in  the 
infinitely  distant  future."49  On  such  a  theory,  uniformity  and  the 
laws  of  nature  appear  the  product  of  development  from  a  primal 

*7  Royce  acknowledges  more  than  once  his  indebtedness  to  Peirce's  cosmo- 
logical views.  And  it  is  noteworthy  that  Ward  too  refers  to  Peirce,  quoting 
\vith  apparent  approval  his  statement  that  "  matter  is  effete  mind,  inveterate 
habits  becoming  physical  laws."  (Realm  of  Ends,  p.  74.) 

48  C.  S.  Peirce,  Monist,  Vol.  I,  p.  165. 

49  Ibid.,  p.   176. 


42     SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

liberum  arbitrium.  Natural  laws  can  never  be  exact,  for  the 
reason  that  there  always  remains  a  factor  of  absolute  chance  and 
spontaneity  both  in  nature  and  in  the  laws  themselves.  The  facts 
and  laws  both  have  in  them  a  tendency  to  serve  unaccountably] 
at  the  same  time,  they  are  also  always  undergoing  alteration  due 
to  the  processes  of  evolutionary  development  themselves. 

Such  a  theory  as  the  foregoing  can  hardly  fail  to  impress  one 
as  fantastic,  at  least  on  first  acquaintance.  It  requires  an  effort 
of  imagination  to  entertain  this  notion  of  an  absolute  chance 
identified  with  feeling,  which  begets  law  and  order,  mind  and  all 
its  developments.  Yet  some  such  cosmogony,  it  is  here  main- 
tained, is  the  inevitable  outcome  of  the  psychological  interpreta- 
tion of  nature,  when  pushed  to  its  extreme. 

i.  In  the  first  place,  any  view  that  derives  evolution  from  the 
conation  or  felt  purpose50  of  a  self  or  selves,  does  not  differ  in 
principle  from  Peirce's  *  chaos  of  unpersonalized  feeling/  from 
which  he  derives  all  the  wonders  of  creation.  The  common  at- 
tempt, on  the  part  of  thinkers  of  a  subjective  tendency,  to  over- 
throw a  mechanical  theory  of  evolution  has  led  them  all  to  sub- 
stitute some  form  of  psychological  feeling  or  spontaneity  as  the 
basis  of  the  evolutionary  process.  Ultimately  such  indetermin- 
istic  spontaneity  can  not  be  distinguished  from  the  arbitrary  feel- 
ing of  Peirce. 

This  whole  tendency  irresistibly  calls  to  mind  the  centralization 
of  modern  French  philosophy  around  the  problem  of  contingency 
and  free  will.  The  point  here  is  merely  that  both  developments 
seem  to  have  their  source  in  a  desire  to  vindicate  the  rights  of 
indeterministic  spontaneity  and  creation.  Any  historical  connec- 
tion is  apparently  not  very  direct.  But  both  Royce  and  Peirce 
must  have  been  influenced  to  some  extent  by  James'  concept  of 
free  will  as  chance,  which  he  developed  from  reading  Renouvier.51 
Ward,  on  the  other  hand,  seems  to  derive  his  interest  in  the  prob- 
lem from  Leibniz's  *  Realm  of  Grace'  together  with  Kant's 

so  While  Royce  does  not  go  so  far  as  to  put  the  origin  of  evolution  in 
purpose  on  the  basis  of  his  mere  scientific  hypothesis  of  evolution,  he  would 
apparently  refer  it  to  this  source  on  metaphysical  grounds. 

51  W.  James,  Some  Problems  of  Philosophy,  p.  164. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  INTERPRETATION.  43 

*  Realm  of  Ends/  and  their  notion  of  an  ultimate  society  of  free 
wills. 

But  apart  from  the  question  of  the  origin  of  these  views,  they 
have  in  common  the  conception  of  a  psychological  spontaneity 
established  as  an  ultimate  first  cause  outside  the  logical  series. 
Here  they  are  fundamentally  at  one  with  Peirce.  Whether  they 
set  spontaneity  in  an  Absolute  or  in  finites,  whether  they  frankly 
personalize  it  or  not,  call  it  feeling  or  will,  in  nowise  alters  the 
essential  principle. 

2.  In  the  second  place,  Ward  and  Royce — no  whit  less  than 
Peirce — are  committed  by  their  conception  of  a  spontaneity  out- 
side the  causal  series  to  a  doctrine  of  absolute  contingency.  They 
have  no  reason  to  stop  short  of  Peirce's  belief  in  pure  chance. 
Any  distinction  between  relative  and  absolute  contingency  falls 
to  the  ground  where  contingency  is  opposed  to  logical  determinism 
and  is  put  outside  the  causal  series.  For  all  such  contingency 
must  go  back  to  the  alogical,  the  irrational  and  pure  chance.  This 
becomes  evident,  for  instance,  in  Ward's  attempt  to  deny  a  con- 
tingency of  chance,52  and  to  set  up  in  its  place  a  "  contingency  of 
freedom,"  which  he  "lets  .  .  .  into  the  very  heart  of  things."53 
The  contingency  of  freedom  he  explains  as  freedom  of  purposive 
activity,  and  therefore  as  unrelated  to  rational  necessity.  The 
difficulty  is  that  the  purposive  activity  of  selves  remains,  on  his 
view,  ultimately  opposed  to  logical  determinism  and  law,  and  as 
only  an  outside  source  of  causal  series.  Owing  to  his  abstract 
conception  of  thought,  creative  activity  remains  outside  reason, 
and  enters  from  sheer  '  out-of-doors.'  Hence  his  contingency  of 
freedom  cannot  ultimately  be  differentiated  from  the  irrational 
contingency  of  pure  chance.  Pringle-Pattison54  points  out  that 
Ward  is  further  committed  to  absolute  contingency  so  long  as  he 
derives  physical  laws  from  actions,  and  as  comparable  to  statis- 
tical averages  which  presumably  hide  the  pure  spontaneity  of 
living  beings.  The  foregoing  criticism  applies  also  in  general  to 
Royce.  For  a  doctrine  of  relative  contingency  can  be  maintained 

52  Ward,    The    Realm   of   Ends,    p.    454.     "  Absolute    chance    is    certainly 
nonsense." 

53  Ward,  Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,  3rd  ed.,  Vol.  II,  pp.  280-281. 

54  A.  S.  Pringle-Pattison,  The  Idea  of  God,  p.  186. 


44     SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

with  no  better  success  simply  by  transferring  the  first  cause  from 
finite  selves  to  an  Absolute.  The  Absolute,  in  its  turn,  is  con- 
ceived as  a  to  turn  simul  of  psychological  states  and  a  source  of 
spontaneity  outside  the  causal  series.55  In  short,  by  the  logic 
of  their  position,  these  thinkers  are  committed  to  a  belief  in  abso- 
lute chance  as  surely  as  Peirce  himself. 

3.  Third,  if  the  factor  of  absolute  chance  remains  in  these 
theories,  evolution  cannot  be  constitutive  or  a  priori  in  the  world. 
Evolution  would  rather  appear  to  be  a  mere  chance  phenomenon, 
as  Peirce  holds ;  nor  can  there  be  any  ground  for  saying  why  the 
world  happens  to  develop  in  the  direction  of  perfect  rationality. 
Indeed  it  could  never  be  certain  that  it  marks  genuine  progression 
from  contingency  to  law.  With  absolute  chance  always  roaming 
the  universe,  we  seem  forced  to  an  ultimate  scepticism,  not  merely 
with  regard  to  evolution,  but  in  regard  to  all  knowledge.  For  if 
laws  and  facts  are  able  to  swerve  unaccountably  from  each  other, 
how  can  we  have  confidence  in  our  judgments?  Apparently  they 
can  give  us  no  ground  for  certain  knowledge,  but  only  ungrounded 
hope.  The  doctrine  of  evolution,  in  the  last  analysis,  would 
amount  to  no  more  than  a  psychological  faith  that  we  may  be  pro- 
gressing from  chaos  toward  law  and  order,  a  subjective  hope  that 
chance  will  not  end  it  all  by  an  impact  of  planets  the  next  minute. 

From  such  reasons,  it  is  evident  that  the  preceding  cosmolog- 
ical  theories  are  in  principle  identical  with  that  of  C.  S.  Peirce. 
But  to  arrive  at  this  conclusion  is  to  concede  that  the  foregoing 
theories  admit  Absolute  Chance  as  a  demiurge  in  the  universe. 
And  in  company  with  absolute  chance  go  nescience  and  extreme 
vitalism.  The  reign  of  law  is  overthrown. 

In  spite  of  the  serious  criticism  directed  against  these  theories, 
one  may  still  recognize  their  highly  useful  criticism  of  abstract 
mechanical  conceptions  of  evolutionary  law.  They  call  attention 
to  the  fact  that  a  mere  belief  in  alternating  cycles  of  integration 
and  differentiation  by  fixed  laws  is  no  theory  of  evolution  at  all. 
They  insist  that  if  individuals,  species,  worlds  are  whirled  along 
in  a  vast  continuity  of  change,  the  laws  of  change  must  themselves 

55  The  same  in  general  applies  to  Taylor's  Absolute  as  a  '  whole  of  feeling.' 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  INTERPRETATION.  45 

be  altered  in  the  process.  Evolution  cannot  consist  in  forever 
ringing  the  changes  on  certain  immutable  laws  which  stamp  nature 
with  invariant  series  of  morphological  forms.  Rather  the  essence 
of  evolution,  on  the  psychological  view,  rests  in  the  unceasing 
novelty  and  creative  power  of  the  universe.  The  failure  of  evo- 
lutionary theory  in  the  past  has  been  due  chiefly  to  a  mistaken 
notion  of  the  permanence  and  rigidity  of  evolutionary  laws  and 
types,  and  a  consequent  neglect  of  its  central  aspect  of  spontaneity 
and  endless  novelty.  As  Royce  sees  it,  "the  great  historical 
enemy  of  the  evolutionary  interest  in  philosophy  has  been,  not 
'  supernaturalism,'  nor  yet  the  doctrine  of  *  special  creation/  but 
the  tendency  to  conceive  the  universe  as  ...  an  essentially  perma- 
nent order."56  Classifications,  processes,  forms  were  held  to  re- 
main the  same  forever,  no  matter  how  individuals  themselves 
might  change.  Thus  evolution  was  conceived  throughout  the 
long  supremacy  of  the  sciences  of  the  eternal  (mechanics,  as- 
tronomy, mathematics,  logic,  etc).  Only  with  the  nineteenth 
century,  with  the  influences  of  Romanticism,  post-Kantian  Ideal- 
ism and  the  rapid  growth  of  the  organic  or  '  humane '  sciences,  has 
the  true  meaning  of  evolution  come  to  its  own. 

Though  one  may  not  entirely  accept  this  statement  of  the  case, 
the  psychological  view  has  rightly  laid  emphasis  on  the  vast  phe- 
nomena of  growth  and  creation  in  the  evolutionary  process.  It 
is  important  to  have  attention  called  to  the  developmental  nature 
of  laws, — that  science,  for  instance,  is  not  limited  to  any  hard  and 
fast  .set  of  categories,  and  that  all  its  laws  are  subject  to  adapta- 
tion with  the  changing  facts.  At  the  same  time,  this  view  has 
failed  (as  has  been  suggested)  to  advance  beyond  the  outworn 
conception  of  law  as  an  abstract  universal.  Had  law  been  con- 
ceived as  truly  organic  to  the  evolutionary  process  itself,  the 
directive  principle  of  evolution  would  have  been  referred  to  the 
universe  as  a  whole.  Instead  it  was  surrendered  to  capricious 
individualities  and  the  laws  of  chance.  Had  law  been  grasped  as 
really  part  of  the  developmental  process,  the  disjunction  between 
law  and  individuality  would  have  been  impossible,  and  the  whole 
envisaged  as  self-guiding  system. 

56  Royce,  Herbert  Spencer,  pp.  35~36. 


PART  II. 

THE  LOGICAL  INTERPRETATION  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 
CHAPTER  I :  THE  CONCRETE  UNIVERSAL  AS  THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  LAW. 

The  second  part  of  this  study  is  devoted  to  the  exposition  of 
natural  law  found  in  modern  idealistic  philosophy  of  a  more  ob- 
jective type.  This  standpoint  has  been  referred  to  as  the  logical 
standpoint,  in  contrast  to  the  psychological.1  By  the  logical 
standpoint  is  meant,  broadly,  one  which  defines  truth  and  reality 
in  terms  of  an  articulated  whole  or  universal.  Truth  and  reality, 
on  this  view,  cannot  be  reduced  to  some  particular  type  of  bare 
existence;  but  are  regarded  as  a  system  of  relations  and  values. 

Idealism  of  this  type  is  not  at  all  concerned  to  prove  that  the 
world  is  composed  of  conscious  subjects  or  of  mental  Stoff.  Nor 
does  it  start  from  any  epistemological  or  psychological  prepos- 
session. The  ego,  in  other  words,  is  not  limited  to  its  conscious 
states  and  required  to  demonstrate  the  existence  of  other  selves 
and  the  whole  of  nature.  Rather  the  logical  standpoint  assumes 
from  the  start  that  experience  or  reality  is  a  unity,  and  that  con- 
sciousness and  the  world  are  one.  "  Continuity,  in  the  popular 
sense,  is  the  leading  character  of  our  world."2  Thought  and  fact 
are  not  initially  sundered,  but,  on  the  contrary,  appear  everywhere 
inseparable  and  complementary.  Indeed,  all  belief  in  our  worlds 
of  science,  art,  history,  not  to  mention  every  act  and  fact  of  daily 
life,  proceeds  on  the  assumption  of  this  unity  of  being  and  knowl- 
edge. It  is  not  something  to  be  proved,  because  it  is  the  very 
standpoint  of  experience.3  It  appears  in  experience  at  once  as 

1  The  writings  of  Bernard  Bosanquet  provide  the  most  systematic  and  fully 
developed    statement    of    what    is   here   termed    the    logical    interpretation    of 
natural  law.     The  following  chapters  are  largely  devoted  to  an  exposition  of 
Bosanquet's  views. 

2  B.  Bosanquet,  Proceedings  of  the  Aristotelian  Society,  N.   S.,  Vol.  XV, 
p.  1 8. 

3  Cf.  J.   E.   Creighton,  "  Two  Types   of  Idealism,"   Philosophical   Review, 
Vol.  XXVI,  pp.  514-536. 

46 


LOGICAL  INTERPRETATION. 


47 


logical  presupposition,  empirical  fact  and  final  cause  or  inner 
principle  of  growth. 

The  '  formal '  postulates  of  thought,  on  this  view,  are  based  in 
experience,  while  the  ' material'  postulates  of  experience  are 
based  in  thought.  Thus  the  so-called  formal  '  Laws  of  Thought ' 
are  understood  to  be  simply  certain  general  characteristics  of  ex- 
perience analyzed  out  and  used  as  '  guides  to  knowledge,'4  because 
they  express  in  abstract  form  its  '  animating  principle  of  growth.' 
Their  principle  is  expressed  by  the  Law  of  Sufficient  Reason. 
That  is,  thought  assumes  reality  to  be  organized  in  accordance 
with  logical  relevancy.  On  the  other  hand,  the  '  material '  postu- 
lates of  our  knowledge  take  the  form  of  a  confident  attitude  to- 
ward a  '  responsive '  universe.  Man's  life  is  seen  to  proceed 
through  the  belief  that  the  universe  is  for  him  somehow  a  stable 
harmonious  order  which  will  respond  to  his  needs  and  purposes. 
Reciprocally,  it  is  assumed  that  man's  ends  are  in  turn  adapted 
to  the  scheme  of  the  universe.  Our  practical  postulate  of  the 
Uniformity  of  Nature  affirms  the  interrelation  of  man  and  the 
universe  in  a  teleological  order.  Though  at  first  sight  it  might 
seem  contradictory  that  thought,  on  the  one  hand,  should  assume 
reality  to  be  a  strict  logical  system,  while  experience,  on  the  other, 
should  assume  it  to  be  a  teleological  whole, — these  two  postu- 
lates do  not  really  conflict.  The  principles  of  truth  and  reality 
are  ultimately  one ;  and  the  relations  of  thought  and  the  values  of 
experience  prove  throughout  complementary.  It  is  discovered 
that  "the  things  which  are  most  important  in  man's  experience 
are  also  the  things  which  are  most  certain  in  his  thought."5 

The  principle  which  expresses  this  unity  of  thought  and  ex- 
perience is  the  concrete  universal.  For  concrete  logic  this  is  the 
true  type  of  universality  or  law.  Bosanquet  has  taken  the  con- 
ception of  the  concrete  universal  from  Plato  and  Hegel.  It  is  the 
insight  that  reality  functions  as  wholes.  That  is,  wherever  real- 
ity is  organized  in  systems  or  'worlds'  (no  matter  how  rudi- 
mentary), there  thought  grasps  experience,  there  is  law.  Any 

*  B.  Bosanquet,  Logic,  2nd  ed.,  Vol.  II,  p.  209. 

s  B.  Bosanquet,  The  Principle  of  Individuality  and  Value,  p.  v.  Hereafter 
this  work  is  referred  to  as  Principle. 


48     SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

relatively  complete  whole  is  a  concrete  universal.  One  goes  to 
actual  experience,  not  to  formal  logic,  to  find  examples.  A  plant, 
a  musical  phrase,  a  little  act  of  patience,  an  organism  in  interplay 
with  its  environment, — anything  concrete  and  individual  may 
serve  as  an  illustration.  And  the  higher  the  level  of  organization, 
the  more  easily  such  universals  become  discernible, — as  in  selves, 
works  of  art,  or  the  institutions  of  state  and  society. 

Perhaps  the  essential  nature  of  the  concrete  universal  may  best 
be  brought  out  by  describing  it  as  a  natural  universal.  In  using 
the  term,  the  intention  is  to  contrast  it  with  the  old  rational  or 
abstract  universal,  which  was  conceived  as  a  formal  framework 
of  thought  that  held  experience  in  its  grasp  like  an  iron  vise.  In 
order  to  emphasize  the  contrast,  three  senses  will  be  shown  in 
which  the  concrete  universal  may  be  called  natural. 

1.  First,  this  form  of  experience  is  natural  in  the  sense  that  it 
emerges  as  a  direct  expression  of  reality.     Mind  or  universality 
is  a  supreme  function  supervening  upon  lower  nature  and  inter- 
preting it.     At  bottom  this  may  have  been  the  signification  of 
Plato's  reference  to  mind  as  '  superlatively  natural.'6     Mind  only 
learns  its  own  *  nature'  from  nature;  yet  mind,  and  mind  alone, 
is  able  to  reveal  the  vast  possibilities  hid  in  nature.7    In  this  double 
sense  mind  or  universality  is  profoundly  natural. 

2.  The  concrete  universal  may  be  called  natural  in  that  it  ex- 
presses the  principle  of  natural  selection,  taking  that  term  in  its 
widest  meaning.    Reality  has  in  it  everywhere  the  power  to  form 
wholes  adequate  to  the  whole,  that  is,  to  form  concrete  universals. 
Such  individual  wholes  arise  through  reciprocal  selection  with 
the  environing  universe.     They  express  the  power  of  the  real  to 
gather  itself  up  in  centres  which  both  respond  to  the  whole,  and 
in  turn  modify  it.     They  meet  the  test  of  natural  selection  in  the 
whole  body  of  experience  constituting  the  concrete  situation,  and 
answer  in  the  affirmative  the  final  question:  will  the  universe 
stand  this  or  no?     All  subjective  selection,  social  selection,  criti- 
cism, and  interpretation  fall  within  this  wider  principle  of  natural 
selection.     It  is  rooted  neither  in  finite  consciousness  nor  in  the 

e  B.  Bosanquet,  The  Philosophical  Theory  of  the  State,  p.   131. 
7  Principle,  367. 


LOGICAL   INTERPRETATION.  49 

laws  of  chance.  Instead,  natural  selection  is  rooted  in  the  uni- 
versal of  concrete  logic,  the  truth  that  every  whole  is  tested  by 
the  universal  whole  and  survives  only  by  proving  itself  equal  to  it.\ 

3.  Again,  the  concrete  universal  is  natural  in  a  sense  related  to 
this;  it  defines  a  thing  in  terms  of  its  functioning.8  Aristotle's 
assertion  that  "  Everything  is  defined  by  its  function  "  expresses 
broadly  the  evolutionary  point  of  view.  The  concrete  universal 
is  a  developmental,  teleological  principle  in  so  far  as  it  defines 
things  through  their  functioning  adequately  to  the  need  of  the 
whole  which  shaped  them.  Yet  this  does  not  signify  definition  in 
terms  of  subjective  teleology,  i.e.,  by  reference  to  a  thing's  mean- 
ing or  use  to  any  finite  consciousness.  Rather  it  is  teleological  in 
the  sense  in  which  the  whole  of  nature  is  teleological.  "  The  end 
...  is  the  whole."*  This  objective  meaning  of  teleology  is  brought 
out  in  the  Greek  term  for  '  nature,'  which  could  as  well  be  trans- 
lated '  growth '  or  '  evolution.'10  And  apparently  nature,  to  the 
great  thinkers  of  all  ages,  has  not  meant  the  mere  sum  of  exist- 
ences or  the  created  world  of  things,  but  rather  the  productive 
principle  of  the  universe  expressing  itself  as  the  complete  growth 
of  that  universe.11  The  concrete  universal  is  this  principle  of 
nature  as  growth  and  functioning. 

It  will  be  evident  from  the  preceding  paragraphs  that  the  con- 
crete universal  as  the  natural  form  of  growing  experience  is 
sharply  distinct  from  the  universal  of  abstract  reflection ;  in  other 
words,  from  the  universal  of  formal  logic,  which  is  reached  by 
generalization  from  a  mere  repetition  of  instances.  Such  a  uni- 
versal expresses  conceptual  abstraction  and  the  hypostatization 
of  the  cognitive  side  of  experience.  It  is  not  properly  a  universal 
at  all,  but  only  an  abstract  particular  added  to  the  sum  of  par- 
ticulars which  it  classifies.  The  common  tendency  to  interpret 
the  logical  universal  as  a  bare  rationalistic  entity  arises  from  a 
deep-rooted  mistake  as  to  the  whole  nature  of  thought,  which  is 

8  For  instance,  Bosanquet  describes  a  concrete  universal  as  "  essentially  a 
system  or  habit  of  self-adjusting  response  or  reaction,  whether  automatic  or 
in  thought,  over  a  certain  range  of  stimulation."     (Principle,  p.  40  footnote  3.) 

9  Ibid.,  p.  181.     Italics  mine. 

10  Bosanquet,  Companion  to  Plato's  Republic,  pp.  384-385. 

11  Bosanquet,  The  Philosophical  Theory  of  the  State,  pp.  130-131. 


ejo          SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

falsely  identified  with  abstract  reflection.  To  begin  with  the  true 
universal  is  to  begin  with  the  fully-rounded  nature  of  mind,  which 
grasps  reality  not  as  barren  classes  and  identities,  but  as  self- 
centred  systems  and  worlds. 

The  concrete  universal  rests  on  a  true  understanding  of  the 
nature  of  thought.  Thought  is  the  form  of  all  experience ;  "  not 
a  separate  faculty  of  something  known  as  the  intelligence.  It  is 
the  active  form  of  totality,  present  in  all  and  every  experience  of 
a  rational  being — perhaps,  in  a  degree,  in  every  experience  in  the 
universe."12  Thought  is  both  intuitive  and  discursive ;  "  imme- 
diate no  less  than  mediate."13  Its  essence  is  the  impulse  to  go 
beyond  itself,  to  transform  the  alien  into  the  kindred  and  to  con- 
stitute a  world.  This  self-transcendence  of  thought  reveals  its 
nature  to  be  the  expression  of  law.  Everywhere  experience  be- 
trays this  tendency  to  go  beyond  itself  and  to  become  universal 
truth.  Thinking  is  simply  the  form  of  the  impulse  toward  ideality 
and  law.  The  embodiments  of  thought  are  seen  characteristically 
in  "knowledge  (including  sense-perception),  love,  and  work  or 
activity."14  Everywhere  thought  overcomes  the  sense- world  by 
bringing  out  its  interrelations  and  significances,  by  revealing  its 
concrete  lawfulness.  Cognition  perhaps  remains  the  most  char- 
acteristic mark  of  thinking  ;15  for  it  is  cognition  that  "  emphatic- 
ally exhibits  that  self-transcendent  character  of  thought  which 
constitutes  its  freedom  and  initiative."16  Yet  it  is  the  recognition 
of  thought  as  the  constitutive  form  of  all  experience,  rather  than 
an  intent  to  emphasize  the  primacy  of  the  cognitive  phase  of  mind, 
which  leads  Bosanquet  to  take  the  logical  universal  as  his  key  to 
truth ;  and  to  declare :  "  Logic,  or  the  spirit  of  totality,  is  the  clue 
to  reality,  value,  and  freedom."17 

12  Principle,  p.  59. 

13  Ibid.,  p.  65. 

14  Ibid.,  p.  61. 

is  Of  course  Bosanquet  regards  cognition  as  no  more  essentially  of  the 
nature  of  thought  than,  for  instance,  its  volitional  aspect.  Both  are  attempts 
to  grasp  wholeness;  their  difference  is  merely  of  degree.  (Cf.  Value  and 
Destiny  of  the  Individual,  p.  121  ff.)  He  would  never,  however,  place  cog- 
nition secondary  to  volition  as  Royce  does ;  or  conation  fundamental  to  cog- 
nition as  does  Ward  (Cf.  Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,  summary  to  Lect.  XV). 

16  Principle,  p.  67. 

17  Ibid.,  p.  23. 


LOGICAL  INTERPRETATION.  ^ 

But  once  more  it  is  necessary  to  reiterate  that  the  logic  which 
Bosanquet  accepts  as  the  criterion  of  reality  is  the  concrete  logic 
of  experience,  not  abstract  formal  logic.  "  By  logic,"  says  Bosan- 
quet, "  we  understand,  with  Plato  and  Hegel,  the  supreme  law  or 
nature  of  experience,  the  impulse  towards  unity  and  coherence 
(the  positive  spirit  of  non-contradiction)  by  which  every  frag- 
ment yearns  toward  the  whole."18  It  is  part  of  the  general  mis- 
understanding as  to  the  nature  of  thought  which  leads  so  many 
thinkers  to  attribute  to  the  laws  of  formal  logic  a  peculiar  and 
ultimate  validity.  Formal  logic  really  consists  of  a  group  of 
highly  abstract  statements  of  the  principle  of  wholeness,  which, 
just  because  of  their  abstractness,  present  the  minimum  of  truth. 
The  Law  of  Non-Contradiction  is  an  instance  of  this  '  appeal  to 
the  whole '  stated  negatively  and  abstractly.  It  is  entirely  erron- 
eous to  assign  absolute  truth  to  a  small  class  of  such  postulates, 
possessed  of  the  peculiarity  that  they  cannot  be  denied  without, 
being  affirmed  in  the  denial.  Only  the  extreme  emptiness  of  the 
postulates  makes  their  denial  impossible.  They  are  simply  highly 
generalized  statements  that  'something  is';  and  to  deny  this 
would  be  to  deny  the  whole  of  experience.  In  fact,  the  proof 
not  merely  of  these  principles  but  of  everything  rests  precisely  on 
this:  that  if  anything  be  denied  absolutely,  nothing  can  be 
affirmed. 

Royce19  is  one  of  the  thinkers  who  hold  that  there  are  necessary 
logical  truths,  whose  absoluteness  is  proved  by  their  incontro- 
vertibility.  Yet  such  a  view,  Bosanquet  thinks,  signifies  false  no- 
tions both  of  thought  and  logic.  The  recognition  of  a  special  class 
of  absolute  truths  opens  the  way  to  a  fundamental  distinction 
between  '  necessary '  and  '  contingent '  truth.  And  the  admission 
of  such  a  distinction  is,  to  Bosanquet's  mind,20  impossible  for  a 
philosophy  grounded  in  the  organic  nature  of  reality, 

is  Op.  cit.,  p.  340. 

is  Royce,  William  James  and  other  Essays,  p.  244.  "  The  absoluteness  of 
the  truths  of  pure  logic  is  shown  through  the  fact  that  you  can  test  these 
logical  truths  in  this  reflective  way.  They  are  truths  such  that  to  deny  them 
is  simply  to  reassert  them  under  a  new  form.  I  fully  agree  .  .  .  that  abso- 
lute truths  are  known  to  us  only  in  such  cases  as  those  which  can  be  tested 
in  this  way." 

20  Principle,  pp.  50-51. 


52     SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

The  relation  between  knowledge  and  the  universe  is  a  relation 
of  reality,  not  necessity.  That  we  cannot  question  this  reality 
is  just  "because  all  our  questioning  or  explanation  falls  within 
it."21  Absolute  necessity  is  really  a  contradictio  in  adjecto.22 
Indeed,  the  entire  controversy  concerning  so-called  a  priori  truths 
of  thought  -versus  contingent  truths  of  fact  is  a  false  dispute.23 
From  the  standpoint  of  the  whole,  reality  is  more  ultimate  than 
necessity.  For  the  self-dependence  of  the  whole  is  reality.24  To 
call  it  necessity  would  be  to  depress  the  whole  to  a  mere  particular 
or  part.  The  actual  necessity  we  feel  in  life  is  generated  by  ex- 
perience from  the  richness  and  coherence  of  its  content.  Thus 
the  highest  degree  of  logical  certainty  attaches  to  the  general 
"trueness  and  being"  of  entire  realms  of  experience  such  as 
religion,  morality,  beauty  and  science.25  To  doubt  these  is  im- 
possible, because  they  are  so  deeply  interwoven  in  the  texture  of 
reality  that  to  doubt  them  would  be  to  destroy  the  entire  fabric 
of  experience.  Although  they  are  not  abstract  laws  possessed  of 
formal  logical  necessity,  they  express  the  deepest  logical  truth  and 
the  genuine  spirit  of  Non-Contradiction,  that  of  wholeness  in 
positive  organized  experience. 

It  is  in  such  concrete  provinces,  moreover,  that  the  truest  ex- 
amples of  law  occur.  We  must  entirely  rid  ourselves  of  the 
notion  that  laws  are  abstruse  formulae,  appearing  only  in  realms 
where  a  high  degree  of  conceptual  abstraction  is  possible.  On 
the  contrary,  the  laws  possessing  the  highest  truth  and  universal- 
ity are  those  almost  beyond  abstract  definition,  and  imbedded  in 
the  most  complex  concrete  wholes.  Bosanquet  puts  the  matter 
strikingly:  "The  relation  of  every  colour,  point,  and  line  in  a 
Turner  picture,  of  the  members  of  the  rhythm  in  a  poem,  of  in- 
tervals of  time  in  an  act  of  patience  or  courage — all  these  are 
more  well  and  truly  to  be  designated  universal  laws  and  connec- 
tions than  the  truths  of  number  and  geometry,  or  statements  of 

21  Bosanquet,  Logic,  2nd  ed.,  Vol.  II,  p.  237. 

22  Ibid.,  p.  215. 

23  Ward,  for  instance,  is  one  of  those  who  distinguish  between  a  priori 
and  contingent  truths. 

24  Op.  cit.,  p.  216. 

25  Principle,  p.  50. 


LOGICAL  INTERPRETATION.  53 

the  characters  of  an  organic  genus  or  species."26  The  goal  of 
law,  such  a  statement  would  imply,  is  the  expression  of  the  con- 
crete and  the  individual.  The  finer  the  adjustments  in  experience 
which  the  law  can  take  account  of,  the  higher  the  truth  of  the  law. 
"  The  ideal  of  a  universal  nexus  is  to  be  embodied  in  the  unique."27 
And  in  the  work  of  art  or  in  the  moral  act,  if  anywhere,  law 
would  seem  to  attain  its  end.  The  logical  universal,  so  far  as 
complete,  becomes  individuality. 

It  is  as  a  consequence  of  the  general  misconception  of  the  na- 
ture of  thought  that  the  conception  of  law  has  been  widely  mis- 
understood. Instead  of  identifying  law  with  the  concrete  uni- 
versal and  the  individual,  logicians  have  commonly  identified  it 
with  the  general  rule.  Through  narrowing  thought  to  abstract 
cognition,  and  logic  to  the  old  logic  of  pure  identity,  they  tend  to 
reduce  the  universal  to  a  mere  class.  But  a  "  logical  blunder  "  is 
thereby  introduced  in  "  fancying  the  concrete  universal — the  indi- 
vidual— incompatible  with  the  realization  of  'general  law.'"28 
It  is  true  that  " every  significant  idea  is  potentially  a  class-idea; 
but  to  consider  it  as  a  class-idea — a  predicate  capable  of  plural 
applications — instead  of  considering  the  detail  of  its  content  as  a 
member  in  the  universal  nature  of  the  system  to  which  it  belongs, 
is  to  consider  it  in  a  weakened  form."29  That  is,  although  every 
universal  may  be  regarded  as  a  '  general  law,'  to  regard  it  as  only 
that  in  a  formal  sense  is  to  commit  the  logical  blunder  of  con- 
sidering it  ultimately  in  less  than  its  whole  nature.  A  universal 
is  more  than  an  abstract  identity;  it  is  a  member  of  a  world. 
When  'general  law'  is  set  up  as  the  true  type  of  universality, 
universality  is  held  to  be  obtained  by  abstracting  certain  common 
qualities  from  a  number  of  individuals,  while  ignoring  their  dif- 
ferences. Thought  is  conceived  to  work  by  a  method  of  omis- 

26  Op.  cit.,  p.  1 06.  Italics  mine.  In  an  interesting  note  (p.  94),  Bosanquet 
suggests  the  organic  being  as  the  thing  we  can  understand  best ;  and  there- 
fore— as  this  would  suggest — the  truest  example  of  law.  This  idea  may  be 
said  to  be  elaborated  in  the  chapter  "  Bodily  Basis  of  Mind  as  a  Whole  of 
Content." 

2T  Ibid.,  p.  104. 

28  Ibid.,  p.   141. 

29  Ibid.,  p.  141   footnote  3. 


54 


SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 


sion,  and  to  be  incapable  of  grasping  '  identity  in  difference.'  The 
universal  becomes  a  mere  class  of  similars,  made  by  the  repetition 
of  tautologies. 

The  falsity  of  such  a  view  should  be  only  too  apparent,  since 
it  is  inconsistent  with  the  whole  nature  of  mind.  But  the  preva- 
lence of  the  error  is  to  be  explained  by  the  partial  truth  which  it 
contains.  For  both  abstraction  and  abstract  universals  are  genu- 
inely essential  to  knowledge.  Witness  the  universals  of  abstract 
science,  which  are  on  the  whole  of  this  type.30  The  mistake  arises, 
however,  when  abstraction  comes  to  be  regarded  as  an  end  in 
itself ;  not  as  a  method  leading  to  universality,  but  as  the  essence 
of  it.  The  unreality  of  the  abstraction  comes  to  be  overlooked. 
It  is  forgotten  that  abstraction  is  based  on  an  assumption,  that  the 
withdrawal  of  a  part  leaves  the  other  parts  or  the  whole  unaf- 
fected.31 Such  a  presupposition  is,  of  course,  theoretically  untrue 
of  any  real  whole;  it  remains,  on  the  face  of  it,  merely  a  pro- 
visional idea.  Yet  just  this  fact  gets  overlooked.  Instead,  the 
abstract  universal  is  set  up  in  itself  as  the  true  universal. 

The  error  of  mistaking  the  abstract  universal  for  the  true  uni- 
versal apparently  takes  two  different  forms.  On  the  one  hand, 
there  is  a  tendency  to  conceive  the  abstract  universal  as  the  only 
possible  type  of  universal.  This  conception  of  universality  is 
represented  clearly  in  one  quarter  by  neo-realism ;  and  in  another 
by  pragmatism  and  anti-intellectualism,  which  (believing  the  ab- 
stract universal  the  only  type  of  universal)  accordingly  reject  it 
for  immediacy.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  tendency  (even 
among  idealists)  to  set  up  two  types  of  universality,  and  to  regard 
both  the  abstract  and  the  concrete  universals  as  ultimately  op- 
posed yet  necessary.  Bradley  and  Ward  are  thinkers  in  whom 
Bosanquet  apparently  finds  this  procedure  marked.32  Royce  un- 

30  Logic,  2nd  ed.,  Vol.  II,  p.  55.  "  All  strictly  mechanical  science, — all 
science,  that  is,  which  regards  its  objects  in  the  light  of  number,  space,  matter 
and  motion,  is  due  to  the  operation  of  the  abstract  universal." 

3iO/>.  cit.,  p.  21. 

32  Bosanquet's  earliest  philosophical  work  (Knowledge  and  Reality,  cf. 
especially  p.  17  and  p.  57  ff.)  remarks  this  tendency  in  Bradley;  while  Ward's 
misunderstanding  of  universality  is  discussed  in  the  Principle,  chapters  II 
and  III. 


LOGICAL  INTERPRETATION.  55 

doubtedly  illustrates  the  same  tendency.  There  appears  among 
certain  representatives  of  idealism  a  kind  of  vacillation  in  regard 
to  the  concrete  universal.  Even  after  the  doctrine  is  professed 
with  the  lips,  it  is  not  carried  through  and  applied;  but  recourse 
is  had  to  the  notion  of  law  or  universality  in  the  sense  of  an  op- 
posed independent  principle. 

Bosanquet's  Gifford  Lectures  call  attention  to  such  confusions 
of  the  universal.  His  lectures  go  far,  for  instance,  toward  cor- 
recting the  view  of  Ward's  Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,  in  which 
idealism  is  represented  as  unalterably  opposed  to  mechanism. 
Mechanism  and  mechanistic  science  are  identified  with  the  ab- 
stract universal.  Accordingly,  all  mechanism  in  science  is  viewed 
as  such  an  abstraction,  as  an  instrumental  construct  of  such  uni- 
versals.  In  Ward's  words,  "the  conception  of  the  course  of 
Nature  as  a  pure  mechanism  is  an  obvious  fiction,  as  much  a  mere 
organon  as  a  table  of  logarithms,  a  transparently  human  de- 
vice."33 Mechanism,  denied  ontological  reality,  is  set  up  as  the 
arch-foe  of  idealism.  Such  a  position,  however,  overlooks  the 
fact  that  wholly  to  deny  objectivity  to  any  realm  of  experience 
is  to  deny  the  very  principle  of  the  concrete  universal.  The  con- 
tinuity and  systematic  nature  of  reality  is  thereby  abandoned,  and 
philosophy  itself  falls  into  subjectivity.  While  it  is  true  that 
mere  abstractness  as  such  is  false,  on  the  other  hand,  mere  imme- 
diacy is  no  less  so.  To  consider  the  concrete  universal  as  exclu- 
sive of  all  order  and  systematic  principle  is  to  confuse  concrete- 
ness  with  mere  immediacy.  Thus,  when  Ward  designates  history 
as  the  true  expression  of  the  concrete  universal,  through  a  false 
view  of  history  he  really  confounds  concreteness  with  immediacy 
and  contingency.  He  is  identifying  it  with  mere  finite  life-proc- 
esses in  time.34  The  truth  is  that  the  principle  of  individuality  or 
concrete  universality  does  not  express  itself  as  a  mere  society  of 
capricious  '  persons '  in  the  temporal  series,  but  rather  through 
systems  of  relations  and  values  transparent  to  the  Law  of  Causa- 
tion or  Sufficient  Reason.35 

33  Ward,  Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,  3rd  ed.,  Vol.  II,  p.  274. 
3*  Principle,  pp.  78-79. 

35  Bosanquet   includes    Royce   among   those    who   find   a   gulf  between   the 
concrete  and  the  abstract  universals,  i.e.,  who  regard  individuality  as  antago- 


56     SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

Philosophy  should  therefore  welcome,  not  protest  against,  all 
extension  of  the  realm  of  law.  Mechanism,  in  the  sense  of  sys- 
tem, appears  as  a  fundamental  aspect  of  all  experience.  And 
though  the  universe  may  by  no  means  be  confined  within  the 
mechanical  categories  as  such,  yet  the  appearance  of  mechanism 
remains  unbroken  throughout  experience.36  Hence  idealism 
should  not  look  upon  current  forms  of  mechanism  as  inimical 
and  dangerous,  but  as  partial  formulations  of  its  own -principle. 
For  speculative  philosophy  accepts  mechanism  in  the  broad  sense 
of  logical  relevancy  and  unbroken  causal  connections.  Its 
mechanism  is  wide  enough  to  accept  without  difficulty  the  gen- 
eral quantitative  relations  underlying  natural  phenomena,  the 
notion  of  equivalence  and  the  correlation  of  degree  of  logic  and 
value.37  Moreover,  if  necessary,  such  a  theory  can  accept  the 
factual  probability  that  the  universe  is  a  physical  process  in  which 
mind  appears  simply  as  a  function  of  the  process,  without  any 
violation  of  the  idealistic  principle.  The  criticism  which  philos- 
ophy of  the  logical  type  offers  of  mechanical  science  is  that  it  has 
not  pushed  its  mechanism  far  enough.  The  task  for  idealistic 
philosophy  is  to  extend  the  conception  of  mechanism  to  the  uni- 
verse as  a  whole.  In  so  doing,  mechanism  is  seen  as  logical  rele- 
vancy, a  logical  relevancy  which  is  at  the  same  time  teleological, 
a  scale  of  values.  Bosanquet  interprets  the  present  attack  of 

nistic  to  general  law  (Cf.  Principle,  Lect.  III).  Royce's  view  resembles 
Ward's  in  that  he  connects  the  concrete  universal  with  the  temporal  series  and 
hypostatizes  it  as  subject.  Royce  finds  the  concrete  universal  at  the  limit  of 
the  temporal  series ;  though  not  to  be  found  within  finite  experience,  it  yet 
remains  its  transcendent  goal.  For  Bosanquet,  such  a  view  would  fail  to 
attain  the  true  standpoint  of  the  concrete  universal,  just  because  it  accepts 
the  false  totalities  of  infinite  time  and  the  infinite  series  of  subjective  pur- 
poses as  ultimate.  Also  it  treats  the  universal  as  a  transcendent  limit,  which 
were  it  wholly  real,  would  be  in  the  highest  degree  present  and  concrete. 

36  Principle,  p.   146. 

37  Ibid.,   p.    140.     "  The    idea    of   mechanism   here   accepted    is   one   which 
neither  reduces  the  universe  to   modifications   of  homogeneous   quantity,   nor 
yet  impeaches  the  '  uniformity  of  nature,'   and  the  general  quantitative  rela- 
tions underlying  natural  phenomena.     It  accepts  as  the  apparent  custom  of  the 
universe  .  .  .  that    qualities   have    quantitative    connections,    and   that   a   high 
degree  of  spiritual  or  emotional  expressiveness  accompanies  a  high  degree  of 
complexity  and  intelligible  determinateness." 


LOGICAL   INTERPRETATION. 


57 


philosophy  upon  mechanistic  science  as  representing  a  half  true 
and  half  false  application  of  their  real  relation.  To  establish  a 
truer  comprehension  of  the  relation  between  philosophy  and  sci- 
ence is  part  of  the  aim  of  his  Gifford  Lectures,  a  specialization,  as 
it  were,  of  his  larger  attempt  to  introduce  a  right  attitude  in  re- 
gard to  the  relation  of  thought  and  experience.  He  greatly 
deprecates  the  " extremes"  to  which  certain  philosophers  have 
been  driven  "by  a  sense  of  the  faulty  philosophy  of  popular 
science,  into  .  .  .  depreciating  the  spiritual  value  of  intelligence."38 
The  mistakes  of  philosophy  in  denouncing  mechanism  are  due  to 
a  fundamental  misunderstanding  of  the  nature  of  thought,  and  in 
consequence,  of  all  its  relations. 

It  is  of  central  importance  to  see  that  both  the  abstract  and  the 
concrete  universals  spring  from  the  same  logical  impulse,  namely, 
the  impulse  to  self-transcendence.  It  is  the  expression  of  this 
self-transcendence  of  thought  which  constitutes  law.  The  essence 
of  thought,  as  has  been  said,  is  to  go  beyond  itself  and  to  con- 
stitute new  worlds.  Law  consists  just  in  the  "tendency  of  ex- 
perience to  be  universal."  The  principle  of  law  is  that  of  con- 
tinuity on  which  all  knowledge  and  experience  depend,  namely, 
that  "  we  have  followed  some  conjunction  of  properties  beyond 
the  case  in  which  we  first  found  them  conjoined,  and  have  trusted 
it  to  hold  good  under  conditions  other  than  those  under  which  we 
first  came  upon  it."39  This  self-transcendence,  the  essence  of  law, 
is  both  a  tendency  to  abstraction  and  to  concretion.  The  impetus 
of  thought  which  dirempts  the  '  what '  from  the  '  that,'  and  pushes 
the  one  beyond  the  other,  finds  embodiment  in  the  abstract  uni- 
versal. The  concrete  universal  expresses  the  no  less  necessary 
and  reciprocal  return  of  the  '  what '  to  the  '  that/  and  their  re- 
union in  an  enriched  and  new-centred  world. 

Law  may  then  be  regarded  either  as  abstract  or  as  concrete. 
That  is,  it  may  be  looked  at  as  a  statement  'applying  a  single 
predicate  to  different  cases,'  or  as  attaching  various  predicates  to 
one  subject.  In  fact,  abstraction  and  concretion  are  inseparable; 
each  has  its  meaning  through  the  other.  The  most  abstract  gen- 

38  Op.  cit.,  p.   140. 
wibid.,  p.  31- 


58    SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

eralization,  for  instance,  has  a  degree  of  concreteness,  in  which 
concreteness  its  true  importance  consists.  As  Bosanquet  puts  it, 
"  every  general  rule,  in  so  far  as  it  includes  within  a  single  inter- 
pretation an  area  of  experience  which  might  have  been  discord- 
antly apprehended,  decreases  the  possibility  of  such  a  discrepancy, 
and  is,  therefore,  so  far  as  it  goes,  a  movement  toward  the  com- 
pletion of  knowledge  as  a  coherent  whole."40  Even  in  its  most 
abstract  expressions  in  science,  thought  has  always  in  it  a  syn- 
thetic element,  which  furthers  the  apprehension  of  the  whole. 
Ultimately  thought  always  returns  to  concretion  and  concrete 
universals,  as  philosophy  teaches ;  yet  it  is  through  the  great  con- 
structive work  of  analysis  done  by  the  sciences  that  this  is  made 
possible.  By  its  discovery  of  abstract  laws,  science  takes  the  first 
great  step  toward  transforming  and  idealizing  the  unorganized 
world  of  immediately  given  experience. 

Science  is  not  always  fully  credited  with  the  great  advance  we 
owe  to  it  over  the  world  of  disconnected  '  things '  of  common 
sense  and  sense  perception.  Science  reveals  the  world  as  a  system 
of  common  qualities,  as  a  realm  of  universal  laws.  The  barriers 
of  *  thisness '  and  '  thatness '  are  broken  down.  Particular '  things  ' 
are  seen  as  real  in  the  light  of  their  connections  and  relations; 
they  are  studied  as  cases  of  certain  universal  principles.  Science, 
in  resolving  the  world  into  common  qualities  and  universal  rela- 
tions, lifts  the  world  out  of  abstract  particularities,  and  sees  it  as 
a  system — and  so  far  as  system — as  concrete. 

Yet  thought  does  not  stop  at  the  level  of  the  relatively  abstract 
universals  of  science.  At  a  higher  stage,  thought  recognizes  in 
the  particular  case  not  merely  a  sample  under  an  abstract  law, 
but  a  concrete  synthesis  or  focus  of  laws.  Reason  requires  to 
see  itself  corporate  in  its  objects,  as  realized  and  objectified  in  the 
external  world.  Anything,  rightly  interpreted,  may  serve  as  an 
example  of  embodied  reason.41  Take  a  microscope,  for  instance. 

40  op.  dt.,  p.  32. 

41  Objects  of  art  and  the  institutions  of  religion  and  the  state  serve  per- 
haps as  the  clearest  examples  of  reason  at  home  in  the  external  world.     But 
we  also  assume  all  objects  in  nature  to  be  concrete  systems  of  law.     This  is 
the  assumption  not  merely  on  which  all  natural  science  proceeds,  but  the  basis 
of  our  daily  relations  with  lower  and  inanimate  nature. 


LOGICAL  INTERPRETATION.  ^ 

A  microscope  is  a  condensed  train  of  inferences ;  it  is  a  concrete 
synthesis  of  universal  laws,  which  man  has  discovered  and  ar- 
ranged in  an  entirely  new  combination.  In  the  microscope  the 
laws  of  nature  find  a  concrete  embodiment;  man  has  brought 
them  to  conscious  meaning  and  incorporated  them  in  the  system 
of  knowledge.  But  while  the  microscope  reveals  the  significance 
hidden  in  nature's  laws,  it  is  no  less  true  that  it  is  entirely  from 
those  laws  the  microscope  derives  its  meaning.  What  consti- 
tutes a  microscope  is  simply  the  power  of  responding  to  certain 
natural  forces.  Reason  then  must  grasp  its  complete  reciprocity 
with  nature.  For  while  reason  gives  the  laws  of  nature  to  the 
world  by  bringing  them  out  of  latency  to  conscious  meaning  and 
use,  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  only  through  nature  does  reason 
grasp  its  own  'nature/  know  itself  as  reason — as  interpreter  of 
the  universe.  In  so  far  as  reason  comprehends  this  universal 
reciprocity,  the  world  has  entered  on  a  new  level  of  reality;  it  is 
no  longer  a  mere  '  existence '  of  '  things '  or  abstract  laws  side  by 
side ;  but  a  new  world  of  concrete  relations  and  values. 

The  principle  operative  at  this  last  level  of  thought  is  the  con- 
crete universal.  It  dissolves  the  contradiction  between  abstrac- 
tion and  concretion,  revealing  them  as  complementary  opposites 
everywhere  united  in  experience.  Everywhere  it  throws  the  light 
of  logical  unity,  reconciling  differences  and  organizing  wholes. 
Seen  as  complete,  "  the  true  embodiment  of  the  logical  universal 
takes  the  shape  of  a  world  whose  members  are  worlds."42 

That  is,  from  an  ultimate  point  of  view,  the  universal  is  seen 
as  a  self-sustaining  cosmos  or  as  individual.  And  in  so  far  as 
individual,  the  universal  is  an  unique  nexus  of  law.  "  Every  in- 
dividual is  a  universal  law  expressed  in  a  set  of  connected  func- 
tions, precise  in  quantity  and  adjustment."43  Such  an  identifica- 
tion of  individuality  with  law  has,  of  course,  not  the  slightest 
reference  to  the  individual  as  mere  conscious  subject.  By  the  in- 
dividual is  rather  meant  a  focus  of  meanings,  expressed  in  a 
"  system  of  laws,  each  of  which  is  general  by  holding  together  the 
diverse  expression  of  the  one  life  and  spirit."44  The  characters 

42  Principle,  p.  37. 

43  Ibid.,  p.  XXII. 

44  Ibid.,  p.   105. 


60    SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

of  uniqueness  and  self-sufficiency  in  an  individual  are  taken  as 
supervenient  perfections  arising  from  the  completeness  of  its 
logical  nexus. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  the  concrete  universal,  not  only  is 
every  particular  object  a  realized  law,  but  the  whole  of  reality 
(which  Bosanquet  terms  the  one  true  Individual)  appears  intelli- 
gible only  as  a  system  of  law.  The  conception  of  the  real  as  a 
system  of  laws  probably  comes  to  Bosanquet  primarily  through 
Plato.45  Doubtless  he  was  familiar  with  it  also  in  the  work  of 
Lotze,  T.  H.  Green  and  Nettleship.  I  may  quote  from  Nettle- 
ship's  Lectures  on  Plato's  Republic  a  finely  lucid  statement  of 
this  view.  Nettleship  shares  with  Bosanquet  the  notion  of  reality 
as  a  hierarchy  of  relations  and  values,  in  which  every  particular 
individual  has  its  place  as  a  focus  of  principles.  Nettleship  writes : 
"  Every  particular  object  is  the  meeting-point  of  innumerable  laws 
of  nature,  or,  as  Plato  says,  in  every  particular  object  many  forms 
communicate  .  .  .  and,  if  an  object  ever  were  thoroughly  under- 
stood, that  would  mean  that  it  was  resolved  into  forms  or  laws ; 
...  it  would  take  its  place  in  an  order  or  system  of  *  forms ' ;  it 
would  be  seen  in  all  the  relations  and  affinities  which  it  has  .  .  . 
The  position  and  function  of  each  [object]  in  the  world  are  de- 
termined by  the  supreme  purpose  of  the  world,  the  good."46 
In  this  view,  every  individual  is  comprehended  as  a  system  of 
laws,  determined  as  to  its  position  and  function  by  the  nature  of 
the  whole.  Such  words  as  Nettleship's,  it  seems  not  too  much 
to  say,  may  be  taken  as  summing  Bosanquet's  conception  of  indi- 
viduality as  concrete  law,  as  a  focus  of  relations  and  values. 

It  follows,  then,  that  law  is  in  its  ultimate  nature  concrete  and 
grounded  in  experience.  The  relation 'between  knowledge  and  the 
universe,  as  has  been  said,  is  one  of  reality  and  not  necessity. 
And  the  expression  of  the  nexus  between  the  parts  of  reality 
takes  the  form  of  organic  systems  or  individuals.  If  the  ideal 
of  law  were  to  fall  short  of  such  embodiment  in  an  individual  or 
unique  system,  it  would  remain  that  of  a  mere  class  of  similars. 

45  Bosanquet,  Companion  to  Plato's  Republic,  p.  257  ff. 

46  R.  L.  Nettleship,  Philosophical  Lectures  and  Remains,  Vol.  II,  pp.  255- 
257- 


LOGICAL   INTERPRETATION.  fa 

For  in  aiming  at  expressing  something  less  than  the  unique  law 
would  become  less  than  universal.  It  would  fall  to  the  level  of 
a  mere  generalized  particular  among  particulars,  narrowing  itself 
to  the  abstraction  of  some  one  phase  of  reality. 

While  law  in  its  full  meaning  is  the  concrete  individual,  it  has 
always  none  the  less  an  aspect  of  abstractness.  Yet  law  as  ab- 
stract is  only  a  means  (though  an  essential  means)  to  concrete 
law  as  the  end.  The  relation  of  abstract  law  to  concrete  law  is 
implied  in  the  fundamental  assumption  of  law,  namely,  that  the 
individual  can  ideally  be  analyzed  into  abstract  relations.  Bosan- 
quet  states  the  point  clearly :  "  Ideally  speaking  every  concrete 
real  totality  can  be  analyzed  into  a  complex  of  abstract  necessary 
relations.  Were  this  not  so,  as  it  is  Wundt's  and  Lotze's  great 
achievement  to  have  shown  in  detail,  teleology  itself  would  vanish. 
For  adaptation  disappears  if  the  end  can  dispense  with  means, 
and  a  universe  which  had  no  necessary  connections  between  its 
parts  could  have  no  definite  or  significant  structure  as  a  whole."47 
The  very  nature  of  the  concrete  law  or  individual  implies  that  it 
is  a  system  capable  of  having  its  organization  expressed  as  ab- 
stract truth. 

The  basic  assumption  of  law  remains  the  capacity  of  the  ab- 
stract general  to  grasp  the  concrete.  This  is  often  falsely  inter- 
preted as  meaning  that  law  claims  to  reduce  the  particular  to  a 
sum  of  abstract  laws,  or  as  meaning,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the 
ideal  law  can  never  be  exactly  realized  in  the  particular  case. 
It  means  neither  of  these  things.  It  means  that  the  law  and  the 
particular  are  complementary  and  necessary  to  each  other.  But 
laws  are  universals;  facts  as  such  are  particulars.  Neither  can 
be  reduced  to  terms  of  the  other.  The  truth  implied  in  this :  that 
the  particular  can  never  be  resolved  into  a  sum  of  abstract  laws, 
nor  the  ideal  law  ever  applied  exactly  to  the  particular  instance, 
is  not  however  matter  for  disappointment  and  despair.  The  un- 
attainableness  of  the  ideal  or  universal  means  no  more  than  that 
the  ideal  cannot  be  shorn  of  its  ideality  and  obtained  as  ordi- 
nary fact.  The  universal  remains  the  organized  principle,  the 
informing  life  and  ideality  of  facts,  yet  is  itself  no  mere  particular 

47  Logic,  2nd  ed.,  Vol.  II,  p.  85. 


62     SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

fact.  To  imagine  that  it  must  be,  involves  the  logical  fallacy  of 
composition.  It  by  no  means  follows  that  because  the  particulars 
are  facts,  the  universal  organizing  them  should  be  factual  too. 
To  say  that  the  universal  must  be  reduced  to  particular  fact  is  as 
much  a  fallacy  of  composition  as  to  say  that  because  every  indi- 
vidual man  dies,  therefore  the  race  cannot  endure.  On  the  other 
hand,  to  say  that  because  the  universal  is  ideal  the  particular  facts 
should  be  resolved  into  ideal  abstractions,  involves  the  opposite 
fallacy  of  division. 

Again,  the  assumption  that  law  implies  the  power  of  the  gen- 
eral to  grasp  the  particular  becomes  false  if  regarded  as  a  kind 
of  occult  principle  holding  only  between  certain  spheres  of  neces- 
sity and  certain  phenomena.  To  be  understood,  the  principle  of 
law  must  be  read  off  from  the  whole  of  reality.  It  must  be  com- 
prehended as  the  tendency  to  self-transcendence  appearing  every- 
where, the  inmost  nature  of  the  real  expressed  in  the  effort  of 
thought  to  universalize  experience.  Wherever  knowledge  grasps 
reality,  there  is  law.  The  failure  to  understand  this  has  narrowed 
the  usual  conception  of  law  till  it  has  become  a  barren  island  of 
abstract  formulae  amid  unbounded  oceans  of  nescience  and  con- 
tingency. 

The  fallacy  explained  above,  of  imagining  a  contradiction  be- 
tween the  ideal  of  law,  which  assumes  the  power  of  abstract 
thought  to  grasp  the  particular,  and  the  lack  of  any  perfect  ex- 
amples in  experience,  has  sometimes  led  to  the  restriction  of  law 
to  that  minimum  of  experience  where  the  ideal  can  at  least  be 
speciously  realized.  The  range  of  law  is  accordingly  confined  to 
the  spheres  of  reality  with  least  content.  Only  in  these  realms 
can  the  parts  be  abstracted,  converted  into  conceptual  formulae 
and  in  turn  substituted  for  the  whole,  without  too  noticeable  dis- 
crepancy. Accordingly  the  sphere  of  law  is  limited  to  the  inor- 
ganic world,  or  at  most  includes  that  part  of  the  realm  of  nature 
outside  conscious  life ;  here  law  stops.  The  assumption  is  "  as  if 
the  logic  of  the  whole  .  .  .  ceased  to  be  intelligible  when  we  pass 
from  the  laws  of  nature  to  the  aims  of  conscious  action."48  The 
goal  of  science,  on  such  a  view,  is  to  reduce  the  individual  to  a 

48  Principle,  p.  167. 


LOGICAL  INTERPRETATION.  63 

sum  of  abstract  rules.  Yet  such  a  goal  can  not  be  realized  even 
with  individuals  in  the  realms  below  consciousness.  The  ideal 
itself  contradicts  the  nature  of  experience.  It  is  based  on  the 
entirely  false  assumption  that  the  withdrawal  of  parts  leaves  the 
parts  and  the  whole  unaffected.  So  long  as  law  is  considered  as  a 
mere  summation  of  abstractions,  so  long  it  can  not  be  identified 
with  the  individual.  Law  remains  hypothetical  and  abstract,  a 
nexus  of  relations  about  the  individual, — at  the  same  time  presup- 
posing the  individual  as  categorical  fact,  basic  and  '  beyond.' 

However,  even  in  the  procedure  of  the  sciences  of  inorganic 
nature,  we  are  not  without  suggestions  of  a  deeper  point  of  view 
from  which  the  separation  of  law  and  the  individual  is  overcome. 
In  science,  though  we  may  say  a  law  is  hypothetical  in  regard  to 
its  universe,  it  is  categorical  within  its  universe.  Scientific  law 
says  'once  true,  always  true,'  and  this  is  a  genuine  categorical 
judgment,  in  so  far  as  it  is  completed  by  the  background,  the 
wider  world  which  serves  as  basis  of  relation.  The  basis  of  rela- 
tion presupposed  by  every  particular  law  is  not  alogical,  a  brute 
Anstoss.  That  it  appears  unintelligible  is  simply  the  fault  of  our 
ignorance.  The  presupposition  of  knowledge  is  the  whole  as 
system,  that  reality  itself  is  a  system  of  laws.  Moreover,  the 
implication  of  continuity  and  self-transcendence  in  particular 
laws  shows  them  to  be  one  in  principle  with  absolute  law,  and 
therefore  categorical.  Absolute  law  is  the  ultimate  individual 
whole.  Particular  laws  are  truly  categorical  just  so  far  as  they 
express  the  nature  of  this  individuality.  Hence  the  real  sense  in 
which  a  scientific  law  claims  to  be  '  once  true,  always  true,'  is  not 
on  the  basis  of  a  mere  calculation  or  summation  of  facts.  It 
claims  to  be  always  true  in  so  far  as  it  '  carries  its  full  conditions 
with  it.'  Seen  against  a  background  of  presupposed  universal 
law  or  individuality,  the  particular  law  is  judged  as  a  concrete 
universal  or  individual. 

In  the  higher  provinces  of  law,  such  as  art,  morality  and  reli- 
gion, it  becomes  easier  to  understand  how  law  and  individuality 
coincide.  A  work  of  art  may  serve  as  an  illustration.  In  a  great 
painting  or  statue,  all  the  details  are  so  organic  to  each  other,  that 
to  alter  one  would  be  somehow  to  alter  others  and  the  entire 


64    SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

effect.  The  unity  of  the  whole  depends  upon  the  perfect  inter- 
dependence of  the  parts.  The  relations  of  the  parts,  on  the  other 
hand,  depend  no  less  on  the  unity  of  the  whole  for  their  signifi- 
cance. Thus  the  law  of  the  work  of  art  and  its  individuality  are 
reciprocal.  They  form  what  Bosanquet  calls  a  '  systematic  iden- 
tity/49 that  is,  an  identity  manifested  in  differences  in  definite  rela- 
tions to  each  other.  "  In  a  work  of  art,  a  picture,  or  a  poem, 
every  particular  effect  is  unique  in  the  sense  that  it  says  something 
special  and  distinctive,  dependent  on  the  nature  of  the  whole 
which  reveals  one  of  its  aspects  in  that  determinate  arrangement 
on  which  the  effect  depends."50  In  the  work  of  art  as  a  structure, 
the  uniqueness  of  each  particular  effect  constitutes  its  lawfulness. 
Here  as  elsewhere  in  experience,  "  it  is  false  in  principle  to  deny 
that  what  we  call  in  the  highest  sense  individual  characteristics, 
are,  within  the  world  to  which  they  belong,  universal  laws."51 
There  is  no  longer  any  antagonism  between  law  and  individuality 
in  the  work  of  art.  The  necessity  of  law  is  no  longer  an  external 
relation,  because  it  falls  as  the  self-relation  of  an  individual. 
Art  perhaps  serves  best  to  reveal  the  illusion  of  abstract  science. 
[Abstract  science  is  frequently  thought  to  pursue  the  conquest  of 
the  individual  as  a  vanishing  ideal.  It  is  art  which  reveals  most 
clearly  that  law  is  everywhere  at  its  goal.  Art  illumines  the 
truth  that  wherever  thought  grips  reality  as  a  unity,  there  is  a 
concrete  synthesis  of  abstract  relations,  individuality  grasped 
as  law. 

This  chapter  has  given  a  sketch  of  the  general  mode  of  inter- 
preting law  from  the  logical  view.  The  object  has  been  to  main- 
tain the  thesis  that  the  principle  of  concrete  unity  and  universality 
appearing  everywhere  in  experience  is  the  principle  of  law.  Law 
is  not  limited  to  certain  particular  fields  of  fact,  nor  to  certain 
highly  abstract  formulae  supposed  to  possess  a  sacrosanct  neces- 
sity. Law  is  present  in  everything.  It  is  the  principle  that  reality 
is  an  intelligible  system,  and  reveals  itself  as  such  throughout  the 
world  in  the  form  of  organized  wholes  or  individuals. 

49  Logic,  2nd  ed.,  Vol.  I,  p.  244. 

50  Principle,  p.  105. 
si  Ibid.,  p.   113. 


LOGICAL  INTERPRETATION.  65 

CHAPTER  II :  EQUIVALENCE  AND  NATURAL  LAW. 

The  preceding  chapter  dealt  with  Bosanquet's  doctrine  of  the 
concrete  universal  and  the  general  view  of  law  which  it  implies. 
The  present  chapter  undertakes  to  examine  the  applications  of 
this  doctrine  to  some  of  the  particular  problems  of  natural  law, 
and  to  note  the  criticisms  which  the  logical  view  makes  of  the 
psychological  interpretation  of  law  described  in  the  first  part  of 
the  study. 

The  reality  of  law  Bosanquet  calls  individuality;  the  truth  of 
law,  its  relational  form  as  such,  he  sometimes  distinguishes  by  the 
term  equivalence.1  Equivalence  is  the  term  by  which  he  describes 
the  fact  that  the  universal  type  of  relation  in  individuals  is  one  of 
qualitative  wholes  in  quantitative  counterparts.  That  is,  it  is 
"the  apparent  custom  of  the  universe  .  .  .  that  qualities  have 
quantitative  connections  "  ;2  or,  in  other  words,  that  "  teleological 
wholes  are  inevitably  constituted  by  what  may  fairly  be  called 
mechanical  relations."3  The  notion  of  equivalence  is  grounded 
on  the  principle  of  continuity  as  well  as  on  the  conception  of 
limits.  As  a  material  postulate  it  is  expressed  by  the  Law  of  the 
Conservation  of  Energy.  Even  such  a  law  has,  correlative  to  its 
mechanical  aspect,  a  teleological  side  expressed  in  its  principle  of 
conservation  of  the  whole.  The  essence  of  equivalence  is  that 
law  is  a  double  manifestation.  Moreover,  the  two  sides  of  law 
are  always  complementary,  which  excludes  the  possibility  that 
one  side  should  be  reduced  to  terms  of  the  other,  or  that  there 
should  even  be  a  point  for  point  parallelism  between  them.  The 
correspondence  of  two  equivalent  systems  (as,  for  instance,  in 
the  psycho-physical  organism)  appears  rather  a  correspondence 
*  in  principle '  than  a  parallelism.  The  two  sides  are  '  capable  of 
corresponding  '*  and  apparently  "  will  not  vary  without  a  reason 

1  As  an  instance  of  what  is  here  meant  by  equivalence,  take  the  perception 
of   sound.     On   the   one   hand,   there   is   a   qualitative   series   of   auditory   ex- 
periences of  the  living  person.     On  the  other  hand,  such  a  series  is  apparently 
constituted    by    a    corresponding    quantitative    series    of    physical    vibrations- 
EC/.  Logic,  2nd  ed.,  Vol.  II,  p.  74  ff.     Also  Lotze's  Metaphysics  (translated 
by  Bosanquet),  Vol.   II,  p.  99  ff.] 

2  Principle,  p.   140. 

3  Ibid.,  p.   1 6 1. 
*  Ibid.,  p.  199. 


66          SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

affecting  all  the  equivalents  alike."5  But  their  equivalence  does 
not  suggest  a  reproductive,  term  for  term  correspondence.  Such 
correspondence  would  imply  a  false  abstract  identity,  analogous 
to  the  pure  identity  of  spatial  points  ;6  not  the  concrete  differen- 
tiated identity  of  two  mutually  responsive  sides  of  reality.  The 
representation  of  each  in  the  other  is  not  by  bare  one-for-one 
reduplication,  but  through  varied  response  to  unique  organic 
necessities.  Though  the  two  aspects  may  be  expressed  serially, 
they  are  not  mathematically  infinite  series.  Their  seriality  is  of 
wholes  within  wholes. 

Something  like  the  notion  of  equivalence  is  absolutely  neces- 
sary, according  to  Bosanquet,  if  we  are  to  retain  the  conception 
of  universal  law.  And  so  long  as  all  thought  and  experience 
proceed  on  the  assumption  of  the  organic  nature  of  reality  and 
the  principle  of  Sufficient  Reason,  we  can  hardly  do  otherwise 
than  believe  in  the  reign  of  law.  The  concept  of  equivalence 
claims  to  be  no  more  than  a  general  idea  of  the  universal  form 
which  appearances  take,  following  plain  probabilities  regarding 
the  arrangement.  First  of  all,  equivalence  acknowledges  the  evi- 
dence to  be  apparently  overwhelming  in  favor  of  an  unbroken 
chain  of  cause  and  effects ;  that  at  no  point  is  there  discontinuity 
and  a  new  principle  entering.  Also  it  accepts  evidence  for  the 
correspondence  and  convergence  of  spiritual  values  with  mechan- 
ical intelligibility.  That  is  to  say,  "  it  accepts  as  the  apparent 
custom  of  the  universe  .  .  .  that  a  high  degree  of  spiritual  or 
emotional  expressiveness  accompanies  a  high  degree  of  complex- 
ity and  intelligible  determinateness."7  In  other  words,  the  teleo- 
logical  side  of  experience  is  complementary  to  the  mechanical,  and 
introduces  no  discontinuity  or  break  in  correspondence  with  its 
mechanical  counterpart.  Even  consciousness  itself  introduces  no 
absolute  distinction  or  new  principle  of  self-direction,  but  appears 
essentially  a  'cooperative  mechanical  force  '8  with  nature.  Indi- 
viduality may  be  regarded  as  a  focusing  or  organization  of  exter- 

6  Op.  cit.,  p.  169,  footnote  3. 

6  Ibid.,  p.  199,  especially  footnote  2. 

7  Ibid.,  p.  140. 

8  Ibid.,  p.  164. 


LOGICAL  INTERPRETATION.  57 

nality,  as  one  in  principle  with  mechanism.  From  its  reading  of 
the  evidence,  equivalence  claims  to  offer  no  more  than  a  general 
'analogy,'  affording  a  certain  'systematic  rationale'9  of  experi- 
ence, without  upsetting  any  of  its  essential  characters.  Yet  any- 
thing short  of  some  conception  of  equivalence  would  apparently 
involve  the  overthrow  of  systematic  determinateness  and  Suffi- 
cient Reason. 

The  concept  of  law  as  equivalence  is  based  on  the  principle  of 
determinism  by  the  whole.  It  has  no  connection  with  material- 
istic mechanism.  The  law  of  the  Conservation  of  Energy  has 
been  referred  to  as  an  expression  of  equivalence.  So  far  as 
the  idea  of  equivalence  is  concerned,  this  law  might  conceivably 
be  stated  in  terms  of  a  psychical  instead  of  a  physical  system. 
The  essence  of  the  law  is  its  expression  of  the  principle  that 
reality  is  determinately  rational,  and  hence  a  closed,  self-conserv- 
ing system.  Bosanquet  suggests  that  the  Conservation  of  Energy 
be  accepted  in  the  particular  form  we  know  it  (i.e.,  of  universal 
physical  system)  simply  because  it  is  'ready  to  hand,'  fitting  in 
with  our  general  '  working  assumptions '  about  reality.  Also  the 
evidence  carries  us  so  far  in  that  direction  that  to  drop  the  con- 
ception would  upset  our  '  ordinary  ideas  of  causation.'  The  prin- 
ciple of  economy  urges  us  to  retain  the  law  of  the  Conservation  of 
Energy  in  its  present  form.  But  the  outstanding  point  in  its 
favor  is  that  it  "  in  principle  assigns  the  control  of  energy  to  the 
predominance  of  content."10  Its  significance  is  that  it  implies 
determination  by  the  whole,  and  not  by  some  particular  principle 
or  bare  directing  force. 

In  contending  for  the  continuity  and  organic  unity  of  reality, 
Bosanquet  does  not  underestimate  the  tremendous  difficulties  in- 
volved in  any  attempt  to  reconcile  the  psychical  and  the  physical, 
the  teleological  and  the  mechanical  orders.  It  is  essential  that 
the  gap  between  consciousness  and  externality  be  frankly  recog- 
nized. In  fact,  any  true  conception  of  law  rests  in  a  perception 
of  the  strongest  contrast  and  correlative  opposition  between  in- 
ternality  and  externality, — an  opposition  which  excludes  any  pos- 

9  Op.  cit.,  p.  175. 

10  Ibid.,  p.   173. 


68    SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

sibility  of  explaining  one  away  in  terms  of  the  other.  Yet  while 
recognizing  the  gap  between  consciousness  and  the  external  world, 
one  can  still  maintain  that  the  gap  introduces  no  change  in  prin- 
ciple.11 Although  consciousness  cannot  be  '  explained '  by  reduc- 
ing it  to  something  else,  there  may  be  a  broader,  truer  way  of  re- 
garding it.  It  can  be  thought  of  as  a  new  type  of  responsiveness 
which  the  world  develops  at  a  certain  stage  of  organization.  At 
a  certain  level  the  adaptability  of  matter  "takes  on  a  new  form, 
ceases  to  be  spatial  appearance,  and  becomes  a  centre  of  response, 
to  which  its  own  antecedent  conditions  persist  as  external  en- 
vironment."12 Consciousness  can  be  an  organic  expression  of 
matter,  yet  remain  distinct  from  matter  as  to  its  function  in  the 
universe. 

Indeed,  to  introduce  consciousness  as  a  new  principle  of  ex- 
planation would  upset  our  notions  of  continuity  and  equivalence. 
First,  it  would  destroy  the  continuity  of  mind  and  matter.  For 
if  mind  is  not  a  type  of  mechanical  system,  it  must  come  in  de 
novo  as  "  naked  consciousness  .  .  .  creating  determinations  apart 
from  sufficient  reason."13  But  this  cannot  be,  for  continuity  is 
the  chief  character  of  our  world;  and  the  assumption  of  nature 
and  mind  as  organic  to  each  other  is  everywhere  the  presupposi- 
tion of  experience.  Secondly,  the  very  concept  of  equivalence 
implies  that  consciousness  is  the  qualitative  aspect  of  that  which 
is  at  the  same  time  essentially  quantitative  and  mechanical  in  its 
nature.  It  would  seem  that  "  mind  ...  is  erected  on  a  foundation 
of  habit  and  determinate  reaction,  to  which  no  injustice  could  be 
done  by  connecting  it  with  a  physical  counterpart,  and  equating 
it  with  a  sum  of  mechanical  energy."14  Were  consciousness  de- 
nied equation  with  a  quantitative  counterpart,  as  equivalence 
demands,  the  definite  balance  and  unity  of  our  world  would  be 
upset. 

Moreover,  the  facts  themselves  do  not  seem  to  indicate  that 
consciousness  marks  the  emergence  of  a  separate  principle  of 

11  Op.  cit.,  p.  198. 

12  Ibid.,  p.  194. 
•Mlbid.,  p.  1 80. 
i*Ibid.,  p.  178. 


LOGICAL   INTERPRETATION.  69 

self -direction,  (i)  First  there  seems  to  be  nothing  in  conscious- 
ness which  cannot  be  represented  by  a  physical  counterpart. 
Illustrations  can  be  adduced  from  widely  different  stages  of  life 
showing  how  physical  systems  represent  psychical  '  ends.'  Any 
case  of  a  physical  whole  responding  by  a  complex  reaction  is  an 
instance:  a  carnivorous  plant,  a  penny-in-the-slot  machine,  the 
action  of  a  man's  brain  when  he  is  thinking.15  (2)  Secondly,  the 
facts  suggest  consciousness  to  be  a  mere  manifestation  of  a  far 
wider  self-directive  process.  Far  below  consciousness  in  'natural 
selection,'  and  above  consciousness  in  the  great  supra-individual 
developments  of  civilization,  history  and  religion,  ends  are 
achieved  completely  without  the  direction  of  consciousness  as  a 
guide.  The  assumption  is  that  "  Nothing  is  properly  due  to  finite 
mind,  as  such,  which  never  was  a  plan  before  any  finite  mind/'16 
But  consciousness  only  makes  its  appearance  high  in  the  evolu- 
tionary scale,  as  a  very  small  world  elicited  from  the  great  world 
of  Nature  by  natural  selection.  It  would  seem  to  fall  within  a 
greater  process  of  self -guidance  by  the  whole  universe.  (3) 
Lastly,  the  aspect  of  immediateness  or  'uniqueness'  about  con- 
sciousness is  not  peculiarly  significant.  Everything  has  an  as- 
pect of  immediacy.  The  danger  of  the  immediate  in  conscious- 
ness as  elsewhere  is  that  it  will  be  taken  as  self-sufficient,  and  be 
maintained  as  above  and  beyond  critical  analysis.  The  special 
mark  of  thought  is  its  power  to  overthrow  mere  immediacy,  to  get 
behind  the  illusion  of  the  '  first  appearance.'  In  conclusion,  then, 
the  evidence  does  not  seem  to  warrant  consciousness  as  an  inde- 
pendent guiding  principle.  Instead,  consciousness  seems  to  fall 
within  the  ultimate  fact  of  self-guidance  by  the  whole;  the  sug- 
gestion is  that  "  the  universe  is,  as  a  whole,  self-directing  and  self- 
experiencing."17 

The  result  so  far  may  be  summarized  as  follows:  Self- 
determination  by  the  whole  expresses  itself  in  the  form  of  law  as 
equivalence.  The  distinction  of  equivalence  is  that  it  assigns  con- 
trol to  the  totality  of  the  content,  and  not  to  some  bare  directing 

is  Op.  cit.,  p.  xxvi. 
!6  Ibid.,  p.  296. 
17  Ibid.,  p.  xxv. 


70    SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

! 

force.  It  accepts  the  world  as  continuous,  yet  as  presented  under 
dual  aspects :  the  quantitative  and  the  qualitative,  or  the  physical 
and  the  mental.  There  is  nothing  in  one  aspect  which  the  other 
may  not  represent.18  Degree  of  teleological  significance  corre- 
sponds with  degree  of  mechanical  system;  everywhere  corre- 
spondence holds  in  principle.  And  in  the  evolutionary  process, 
with  the  appearance  of  consciousness,  the  demand  for  self- 
direction  becomes,  on  the  one  side  explicitly  and  freely  logical, 
and,  on  the  other,  the  measure  of  value.19  Such  duality  in  unity 
is  allowed  for  in  the  concept  of  law  as  equivalence. 

The  true  relation  of  the  two  sides  of  the  real  can  not  be  ex- 
pressed by  parallelism,  interaction  or  epiphenomenalism.  These 
three  current  conceptions  are  viewed  by  Bosanquet  as  a  menace 
to  the  reign  of  law.  They  make  a  gulf  between  the  psychical  and 
the  physical,  the  teleological  and  the  mechanical,  which  they  them- 
selves are  unable  to  bridge.  The  teleological  they  identify  with 
the  conscious,  and  then  proceed  to  a  treatment  of  consciousness 
which  makes  it  a  mere  hollow  repetition  of  the  physical.  "  The 
point,"  as  Bosanquet  puts  it,  "  is  that  in  all  these  theories  con- 
sciousness is  conceived  on  intentionally  dualistic  lines,  as  a  repe- 
tition or  duplication  of  neurosis  in  a  different  medium  or  with  a 
different  attribute.  Neurosis  is  taken  as  in  space ;  and  psychosis 
as  the  same  thing  over  again,  repeated  without  any  reason,  in  the 
form  of  feeling  or  conation  or  cognition."20  Law,  in  all  three,  is 
grounded  in  a  dualism  of  the  two  orders ;  and  the  teleological  half 
of  the  dualism  is  retained  gratuitously.  No  rational  account  of 
the  relation  is  given.  Parallelism  maintains  an  inert  concomi- 
tance for  which  it  can  give  no  reason.  Epiphenomenalism  holds 
the  teleological  to  be  a  mere  effect  which  has  no  reaction21 — in 
itself  a  contradictory  notion.  Interaction  is  based  on  an  evasion 
of  principle;  it  appeals  for  its  evidence  to  margins  of  experience 

18  Op.  cit.,  p.  xxvi.     "  Thus  there  is  nothing  in  mind  which  the  physical 
counterpart  cannot  represent ;  "  and,  vice  versa,  presumably  nothing  in  the 
physical  order  beyond  reproduction  in  terms  of  mind. 

19  Op.  cit.,  p.  203. 

20  Bosanquet,  The  Value  and  Destiny  of  the  Individual,  pp.  2-3. 

P.  3- 


LOGICAL  INTERPRETATION.  7I 

where  the  quantities  are  too  small  for  precise  verification.22  Also, 
it  virtually  reduces  the  teleological  to  terms  of  the  mere  mechan- 
ical by  interpreting  the  relation  between  the  two  on  the  analogy 
of  transient  causation  between  material  things.23  Lastly,  inter- 
action overthrows  both  the  Conservation  of  Energy  and  the  Law 
of  Sufficient  Reason — the  very  principle  of  mechanism  itself — 
by  introducing  an  '  unfathomable  fountain  of  spiritual  energy.'24 
The  difficulties  of  parallelism,  epiphenomenalism  and  interaction 
all  spring  from  their  assumption  of  a  dualistic  standpoint.  In- 
stead of  accepting  mind  as  the  reality  of  body,25  they  take  the  two 
as  separate  entities  and  then  face  the  insuperable  difficulty  of  ex- 
plaining the  '  relation '  between  them. 

Thought  is  thus  brought  back  to  equivalence  as  the  most  ade- 
quate explanation  of  the  relation  of  consciousness  and  the  phys- 
ical order.  While  not  committing  himself  to  mere  psycho- 
physical  equivalence  as  such,  Bosanquet  believes  that  something 
like  equivalence  in  the  broad  sense  must  be  maintained  if  the 
mind  is  to  remain  a  mind  at  all.  "  It  is  not  here  alleged,"  he  states 
in  his  Gifford  Lectures,  "that  to  accept  a  physical  counterpart 
subject  to  quantitative  relations  is  the  only  conceivable  law  for 
consciousness.  But  it  is  maintained  that  some  such  system  must 
be,  if  the  mind  is  to  be  a  mind  at  all."28  "  The  suggestion  before 
us  is  ...  to  extend  to  consciousness  in  general  the  conception  of 
de  facto  equivalence."27  Taken  in  its  widest  sense,  equivalence 
stands  for  the  principle  of  determination  by  the  whole,  and  the 
expression  of  this  determination  in  two  mutually  responsive  sys- 
tems :  logic  and  value. 

22  Principle,  pp.   172-173. 

23  Ibid.,  p.   174. 

24  Ibid.,  p.   169. 

25  Bosanquet,  Proceedings  of  the  Aristotelian  Society,  Vol.  XII,  p.  245 : 
"  My   own  view  points   to   getting   rid  of  the  dualism   on  which   parallelism, 
interaction,  and  epiphenomenalism  all  seem  to  me  to  rest.     Instead  of  taking 
mind  as  the  reality  of  body,  all  of  these  take  it  as  something  separate,  though 
caused  by  body ;  and  then,  of  course,  you  have  a  '  relation '  between  them, 
either   mere   separation,   or  attempts   to   minimise  the   energy  by  which  body 
causes  mind,  or  by  which  mind  acts  on  body." 

26  Principle,  p.   174. 

27  Ibid.,  p.  175. 


72     SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

There  have  been  various  attempts  to  overthrow  law  and  equiva- 
lence by  attacking  the  principles  of  the  Conservation  of  Energy 
and  the  Uniformity  of  Nature.  These  attacks  appear  in  various 
quarters  under  the  names :  ethical  idealism,  pragmatism,  vitalism, 
intuitionism  and  certain  forms  of  voluntarism.28  They  aim  to 
establish  freedom,  spontaneity,  and  the  claims  of  the  '  spiritual.' 
The  motive  of  the  general  standpoint  was  noted  in  the  first  part 
of  this  study.  The  assumption  at  the  basis  of  it  is  "that  a  spir- 
itual philosophy  requires  mentality  in  nature,  that  mentality  de- 
mands variability,  and  that  high  variability  is  incompatible  with 
the  principle  of  uniformity."29  Panpsychism  undertakes  to  re- 
veal nature  as  a  realm  of  free  and  living  agents  especially  through 
the  overthrow  of  uniformity. 

Two  chief  lines  of  attack  upon  uniformity  are  found  in  (i)  the 
impossibility  of  complete  absolute  verification  of  scientific  laws ; 
and  (2)  the  apparent  amount  of  arbitrary  variation  and  sponta- 
neity in  the  world.  In  answer  to  the  impossibility  of  verifying 
all  the  instances,  Bosanquet  points  out  that  it  is  a  wholly  false 
conception  of  law  that  requires  a  repetition  of  instances  without 
limit.  Such  a  notion  of  law  is  grounded  in  the  abstract  uni- 
versal; its  essence  is  taken  to  be  the  reduplication  of  identities. 
But  the  value  of  a  law  does  not  lie  in  the  repetition  of  cases,  but 
in  the  range  and  organization  of  the  content.30  As  Mill  showed, 
a  law  or  universal  may  be  framed  on  one  case,  provided  it  can 
be  shown  to  be  truly  consistent  with  the  whole  given  system.31 
The  ultimate  test  of  law  is  not  in  terms  of  homogeneous  quantity 
but  of  coherence  with  the  whole.  Quantity  is  at  best  only  a  sec- 
ondary criterion.  As  Aristotle  long  ago  pointed  out,  the  universal 
cannot  be  perceived  or  counted  in  time  or  space.  Logical  rele- 
vancy, consistency  with  the  whole  system,  is  the  test  of  truth. 
The  conception  of  law  and  uniformity,  therefore,  can  not  be  dis- 
proved by  the  impossibility  of  verifying  all  possible  cases.  Nor, 
on  the  other  hand,  can  it  be  disproved  by  citing  a  number  of 

28  Bosanquet  has  generally  in  mind,  such  thinkers  as :  Ward,  James,  Driesch, 
Bergson  and  Varisco. 

29  Op.  cit.,  p.  82. 

so  Logic,  2nd  ed.,  Vol.  II,  p.   183. 

31  Bosanquet,  Essentials  of  Logic,  p.  153. 


LOGICAL   INTERPRETATION.  73 

cases  of  apparently  inexplicable  variation  and  contingency.  For 
if  quantity  of  instances  is  not  the  ultimate  criterion  of  law,  a  mere 
number  of  cases  as  such,  either  pro  or  con,  can  have  no  weight 
against  the  certainty  of  one  logically  established  case.  Apparent 
factual  incompleteness  or  inconsistency  can  never  prevail  in  the 
face  of  logical  consistency. 

The  attack  on  uniformity  by  psychological  idealism  and  other 
views  proceeds  through  a  misunderstanding  of  the  true  nature  of 
uniformity.  The  psychological  standpoint  treats  it  as  an  epistemo- 
logical  postulate,  as  an  abstract  'principle  of  repetition  of  simi- 
lars.' It  holds  that  this  postulate  may  be  overthrown  by  mere 
factual  instances  of  irrelevant  variation  and  apparent  sponta- 
neity. But  the  very  attempt  to  overturn  uniformity  (a  logical 
postulate)  by  purely  factual  evidence  is  an  elementary  logical 
blunder.  So  in  the  attempt  to  discredit  uniformity  by  showing 
that  the  future  does  not  resemble  the  past,  and  that  '  repetition ' 
does  not  always  involve  '  similars.'  Bosanquet  sees  clearly  the 
final  implication  hidden  in  this  attack  on  uniformity.  "  To  say, 
first,  that  variability  in  conduct  due  to  minds  establishes  inde- 
terminate spontaneity,  and  that  this  excludes  Uniformity  in  the 
logical  sense,"  he  holds,  "would,  indeed,  be  to  say  something. 
And  ...  it  seems  probable  that  we  are  really  in  presence  of  such 
an  attempt  to  discredit  the  conception  of  logical  nexus — the  con- 
ception of  relevancy  which  is  what  logicians  means  by  uniformity 
— alike  in  nature  and  in  what  we  know  as  mind.  This  may  be 
disclaimed ;  but,  strictly  speaking,  it  is  the  only  thing  that  can  be 
meant."32  But  such  efforts  to  establish  indeterminism  and  vital- 
ism by  adducing  questionable  facts  to  disprove  what  is  really  a 
logical  principle,  can  not  prevail.  Unless  high  variability  be  inex- 
plicable in  principle  (which  has  certainly  not  been  shown),  it 
cannot  be  opposed  to  the  conception  of  uniformity  or  relevancy.33 

True  uniformity,  on  the  logical  interpretation,  is  grounded  in 
the  principle  of  rational  system  or  the  concrete  universal.  In 
other  words,  "  the  Uniformity  of  Nature  is  here  taken  as  a  log- 
ical postulate,  equivalent  to  the  Law  of  Identity  as  interpreted 

32  Principle,  p.  84. 

33  Ibid.,  p.  xxi. 


74 


SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 


into  the  Law  of  Sufficient  Reason."3*  It  is  in  this  sense  of  sys- 
tematic wholeness  or  relevancy  that  it  appears  as  the  fundamental 
assumption  of  our  belief  in  nature  and  as  the  foundation  of  sci- 
ence. Such  uniformity,  having  as  its  test  concrete  universality 
and  not  repetition  of  instances,  must  therefore  express  itself  not 
as  a  barren  identity  but  as  a  systematic  identity  of  differentiated 
parts.  The  type  of  true  universal  connection  in  which  law  shows 
itself  must  be  "that  which  holds  between  the  differing  parts  of  an 
individual  system,  such  that  the  parts,  and  their  variations,  though 
not  similar,  determine  each  other,  as  in  any  machine,  or  more 
completely  in  an  organism  or  mind."35  Accordingly  uniformity  or 
law  is  not  regarded  as  in  any  sense  opposed  to  individuality. 

Nor  is  uniformity  or  law  antithetical  to  mind.  The  psycholog- 
ical view  adopts  the  prevalent  belief  in  a  disjunction  between 
them.  This  implies  that  the  disproof  or  uniformity  would  be 
equivalent  to  a  proof  of  the  psychical  nature  of  facts.  But  there 
is  really  no  connection  between  the  disproof  of  the  one  and  the 
proof  of  the  other.  The  very  idea  of  an  opposition  between  mind 
and  uniformity,  "  sets  us  wrong  ab  initio".  as  Bosanquet  says,  "  in 
our  attitude  to  the  characteristics  of  consciousness,  teaching  us  to 
connect  it  with  eccentricity  and  caprice — the  negation  of  coherent 
system — instead  of  with  system  and  rationality."36  It  leads  to 
the  belief  that  one  conies  to  the  psychical  by  approaching  the  law- 
less and  inexplicable.  The  error,  again,  is  based  on  the  funda- 
mental mistake  of  identifying  the  logical  universal  with  the  ab- 
stract universal.  From  it  arises  the  illusion  that  lawfulness  or 
universality  signifies  dead  mechanical  routine  and  the  association 
of  the  psychical  with  the  singular,  capricious,  and  indeterminate. 
Once  uniformity  is  understood  to  mean  relevancy  and  concrete 
universality,  all  opposition  to  mind  vanishes.  Indeed,  it  may  be 
truly  insisted  "  that  in  the  mental  province  the  true  Uniformity  of 
Nature  exhibits  itself  in  the  fullest  and  completes!  sense."37  For 
it  is  in  mind  as  such  that  there  appears  the  highest  degree  of  rich, 
complex  variations  organized  within  coherent,  intelligible  systems. 

8*0/».  cit.,  p.  138. 
35  Ibid.,  p.  xxii. 
**Ibid.,  p.  94. 
37  Ibid.,  p.  95. 


LOGICAL  INTERPRETATION.  75 

There  remains  to  be  discussed  one  rather  formidable  argument 
advanced  by  those  representing  the  psychological  view  against 
uniformity.  This  is  the  argument  from  the  analogy  of  physical 
to  social  statistics.  The  argument  seeks  to  show  that  uniformity 
in  nature  may  be  a  mere  fiction  of  scientific  method,  and  nature 
really  composed  of  free  psychical  individuals.  It  points  out38 
that  in  physical  statistics  dealing  with  minute  physical  elements 
(e.g.,  such  as  atoms  of  oxygen)  the  measurements  can  only  be 
en  masse;  the  averages  themselves  tell  nothing  of  the  real  sepa- 
rate individuals  composing  them.  In  dealing  with  human  social 
groups,  science  uses  a  similar  method  of  averages,  striking  a 
figure  constant  for  its  purposes  simply  by  ignoring  all  variety 
among  the  individuals.  But  in  social  statistics  we  know  that  uni- 
formity exists  merely  as  an  assumption  of  scientific  method,  while 
concealing  the  greatest  life  and  variety  underneath.  It  appears 
that  we  use  exactly  the  same  device  of  scientific  method  in  our 
physical  investigations  of  nature.  Therefore  analogy  suggests 
that  beneath  the  apparent  uniformity  of  physical  laws  may  like- 
wise lie  hidden  the  life  and  spontaneity  of  self -determining  in- 
dividuals. 

Bosanquet  replies  to  the  argument  by  pointing  out  a  funda- 
mental difference  between  physical  and  social  averages,  rendering 
the  whole  analogy  fallacious.  Social  statistics  are  based  on  true 
constant  averages ;  physical  statistics  are  not.  By  a  true  constant 
average,  Bosanquet  shows,  is  meant  one  derived  through  a  com- 
parison of  averages  from  groups  that  in  some  way  differ.  Now 
it  is  ex  hypothesi  impossible  to  derive  differentiated  groups  from 
minute  physical  elements,  since  they  are  by  definition  homoge- 
neous. In  such  physical  statistics  it  is  only  possible  to  strike  one 
type  of  average;  hence  a  true  constant  average  (one  based  on  a 
comparison  of  averages)  cannot  be  derived.  Social  statistics, 
on  the  other  hand,  are  based  on  compared  averages  from  differing 
groups,  and  therefore  involve  true  constants.  This  important 
distinction  between  the  averages  of  physical  and  social  statistics 
vitiates  any  analogy  between  them.  As  for  the  attempt  to  prove 
the  psychical  character  of  nature  by  such  an  argument,  one  can 

38  Op.  cit.,  pp.  85  ff. 


76     SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

only  remark  with  Bosanquet  that,  "  The  distribution  of  mentality 
in  nature  seems  to  be  a  mere  issue  of  fact."39  The  question,  how- 
ever interesting,  has  nothing  to  do  with  uniformity,  the  problem 
of  logical  nexus.  In  the  last  analysis,  statistical  or  quantitative 
relationships  cannot  express  the  nature  of  law. 

Yet  Bosanquet  does  not  deny  the  value  of  statistical  methods. 
Even  universals  of  quantity  have  always  in  them  elements  of 
concrete  universality.  Though  not  agreeing  with  Royce  that  sta- 
tistical approximation  may  represent  the  ultimate  type  of  scien- 
tific method,  Bosanquet  admits  that  it  may  approach  indefi- 
nitely near  the  ideal  of  concrete  law  or  logical  nexus.  But  he 
would  differ  from  Royce  as  to  the  goal  of  the  statistical  method 
itself.  While  Royce  apparently  looks  to  physical  statistics  as  the 
ideal  of  statistical  method,  Bosanquet  would  set  up  social  statistics 
as  the  truer  type.  For  Bosanquet,  statistics  are  not  true  in  pro- 
portion as  they  approach  logical  abstraction  and  the  summation 
of  identities,  but  to  the  degree  that  they  approach  systematic 
variation  and  rich,  though  relevant,  complexity.  He  distinguishes 
these  relatively  abstract  and  concrete  kinds  of  statistics  by  the 
names  '  second  class '  and  '  first  class '  statistics. 

'  Second  class '  or  abstract  statistics  proceed  through  "  discount- 
ing unknown  causes  by  including,  as  near  as  may  be,  their  whole 
cycle."40  Such  is  the  ideal  of  the  statistical  method  set  forth  by 
Royce  and  Peirce.  Its  basis  is  the  law  of  probability  by  which, 
when  we  are  ignorant  of  the  causes  operating  in  events,  we  infer 
that  through  taking  a  large  enough  number  of  instances,  we  shall 
include  in  the  long  run  all  unknown  causes  with  equal  frequency, 
thereby  cancelling  them.  We  assume  that  in  the  long  run  our 
average  becomes  a  constant.  In  default  of  any  knowledge  why 
variations  should  occur,  we  infer  that  in  the  end  uniformity  and 
constancy  must  result.  Here,  be  it  noted,  the  principle  of  uni- 
formity is  rooted  in  the  concept  of  probability,  and  involves  no- 
tions of  ignorance,  quantity  and  chance.41 

39  Op.  cit.,  p.  86. 
40/foU,  p.  89. 

4!  Such  is  the  basis  of  Royce's  and  of  Peirce's  theory  of  statistical  truth. 
The  method  is  that  of  the  '  fair  sample '  selected  by  chance  from  a  large  col- 


LOGICAL   INTERPRETATION.  77 

In  approaching  the  province  of  '  first  class '  statistics,  we  pass 
from  the  disjunction  of  ignorance  to  a  disjunction  of  knowledge. 
We  leave  behind  the  idea  of  law  as  a  bare  identity  attained  by 
ignoring  differences  partly  through  ignorance  of  them.  We  enter 
the  realm  of  '  first  class '  statistics,  where  law  begins  to  appear  as 
equivalence,  where  there  is  correlation  between  uniformities  and 
their  conditions.  Statistics  are  now  related  to  known  causes; 
and,  as  they  vary  and  diverge  from  bare  uniformity,  become  pro- 
gressively more  intelligible.  Of  course  some  unexplained  varia- 
tion always  remains;  statistical  conclusions  are  always  hypothet- 
ical as  regards  the  individual.  But  this  unexplained  variation 
is  not  the  typical  datum  of  the  method.  In  '  first  class '  or  social 
statistics,  "the  variable  and  individual  element,  is  the  climax  of 
intelligibility.  Not  constancy,  but  explicable  or  relevant  varia- 
tion is  the  typical  character  of  the  measurements  involved."42 
Here  the  ideal  of  method  is  not  to  smooth  over  and  compensate 
for  variations  accepted  as  inexplicable,  but  to  rationalize  varia- 
tions as  far  as  possible;  the  underlying  assumption  being  not  a 
calculus  of  chances,  but  that  all  variations  are  relevant.43  On 
such  a  view,  uniformity  is  not  approached  through  the  widest  pos- 
sible divergence  of  the  statistical  generalization  from  the  concrete 
and  the  individual.  The  goal  of  such  uniformity  would  be  ig- 
norance. Rather  uniformity  is  approximated  as  statistics  con- 
verge toward  the  individual.  The  ideal  of  such  statistical  uni- 
formity would  be  the  convergence  of  the  universal  and  the 
individual  in  one  system  of  logical  nexus.  In  other  words,  the 

lection.  The  assumption  of  procedure  is  the  law  of  chance  which  presumes 
that  if  a  collection  be  large  enough,  in  the  '  long  run  '  the  '  sampling '  will 
give  us  the  character  of  the  whole  collection.  Chance,  quantity  and  ignor- 
ance are  made  the  grounds  of  attaining  uniformity.  The  notion  of  chance 
is,  of  course,  fundamental  in  a  procedure  based  on  the  Laws  of  Chance  and 
on  the  selection  of  sample  at  hazard.  Quantity  appears  in  the  concepts  of 
the  '  long  run  '  and  the  '  large  collection.'  Ignorance  is  made  a  ground  in 
that  the  '  fair  sample  '  must  be  one  selected  -without  any  particular  reason. 
(Cf.  Royce,  "The  Principles  of  Logic,"  Encyclopaedia  of  the  Philosophical 
Sciences,  Vol.  I,  translated  by  B.  E.  Meyer.) 

42  Principle,  p.  91. 

43  Ibid.,   p.    119.     "The   Uniformity   of   Nature   or  principle   of   Relevancy 
means  that  every  variation  is  a  member  of  an  intelligible  system." 


78          SOME  MODERN   CONCEPTIONS   OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

ideal  of  social  statistics  returns  us  to  Bosanquet's  main  thesis: 
the  individual  and  the  law  are  one. 

It  is  necessary  to  pass  from  considerations  of  uniformity  to 
another  misconception  which  threatens  the  true  comprehension  of 
law.  This  is  the  tendency  to  subjectivity.  According  to  Bosan- 
quet,  so  long  as  individuality  is  made  dependent  upon  subjective 
consciousness,  so  long  there  is  failure  to  regard  the  individual  as 
a  system  of  law.  Individuality  remains  a  psychological  concep- 
tion and  not  a  logical  one.  The  idea  in  which  this  threatening 
subjectivism  centres  is  "that  popular  principle  of  ethical  or  the- 
istic  Idealism  known  in  general  as  Teleology."44  Such  teleology, 
with  its  implication  of  a  false  notion  of  individuality,  has  perhaps 
gained  prominence  in  philosophy  through  the  Kantian  theism, 
with  its  emphasis  on  finite  agents  and  the  power  of  subjective 
selection.45  Also  the  interpretation  of  mind  as  states  of  con- 
sciousness suggested  in  Berkeley,  Kant  and  others,  has  led  many 
thinkers  to  identify  the  mind  with  what  is  before  the  mind.  The 
consequent  narrowing  of  teleology  to  terms  of  conscious  purpose 
justifies  Bosanquet's  criticism  of  it  as  "  a  psychological,  temporal 
and  ethical  idea."46 

Bosanquet's  own  view,  as  I  have  sought  to  indicate,  aims 
throughout  to  be  logical  and  not  psychological.  Mind,  for  him, 
cannot  be  identified  with  subjective  selection  or  with  the  reflective 
consciousness  conceived  as  a  lens  of  abstract  planning  cognition. 
Mind  is  everywhere  in  the  universe ;  only  so  is  mind  constitutive 
of  reality.  If  philosophy  is  to  interpret  reality  truly,  the  whole 
analogy  of  finite  consciousness  must  be  abandoned.  Mind  must 
be  taken  in  its  complete  universality  and  objectivity.  Not  that 
mind  is  no  longer  to  be  regarded  as  a  principle  of  direction, — but 
the  plan  becomes  rather  immanent  in  the  whole  and  developing 
as  the  principle  of  its  development.  Accordingly,  teleology  is  not 
identified  with  conscious  purpose,  but  is  extended  to  the  universe 
and  assumes  the  form  of  value  attaching  to  objective  individ- 
uality (I.e.,  to  coherent  system).  "In  extending  the  idea  of 

44  Op.  cit.,  p.  123. 

45  Cf.  ibid.,  p.  156. 

46  Ibid.,  p.   127. 


LOGICAL  INTERPRETATION.  79 

teleology  to  the  universe  as  a  whole  we  are  turning  ...  to  the 
question  whether  the  totality  .  .  .  can  be  apprehended  or  con- 
ceived as  satisfactory,  i.e.,  as  a  supreme  value."47  "The  true 
question  of  value  .  .  .  would  depend  on  the  structure  and  signifi- 
cance of  the  whole  in  course  of  completion ;  that  is,  on  its  charac- 
ter of  individuality.''48  Such  teleology  has  clearly  nothing  to  do 
with  finite  minds,  but  is  based  on  the  value  and  individuality  of 
a  world. 

That  teleology  can  have  no  meaning  if  limited  to  finite  con- 
sciousness and  de  facto  '  persons/  is  evident  on  a  number  of 
grounds.  In  the  first  place,  thus  to  narrow  teleology  would 
be  grossly  to  ignore  the  clear  signs  of  teleology  below  and 
above  consciousness.  Below  us,  teleology  appears  in  'natural 
selection ' ;  above,  it  is  revealed  in  the  great  linked  development  of 
history,  art  and  ideas.  As  has  been  pointed  out,  finite  conscious- 
ness itself  must  be  the  revelation  of  a  teleological  principle  higher 
than  its  own  self-direction.  To  place  the  source  of  all  teleology 
in  finite  consciousness  would  be  to  raise  subjective  mind  to  deity, 
and  at  the  same  time  to  reduce  all  else  to  blank  externality.49 
Moreover,  teleology  and  individuality  would  lose  their  signifi- 
cance if  narrowed  to  the  consciousness  of  *  persons,'  because 
'  persons '  as  such  have  only  incomplete  reality.  A  psychological 
'  person '  or  ego  has  its  ground  beyond  itself.  For  consciousness, 
in  postulating  its  unity  with  itself,  postulates  its  unity  with  other 
persons,  with  super-personal  individuals  like  the  state  and  society, 
and  with  external  nature.50  Furthermore,  a  '  person '  is  not  cir- 
cumscribed by  fixed  and  negative  limits  like  a  '  thing/  as  the  psy- 
chological interpretation  assumes.  It  is  not  to  be  defined  as  this 
here-and-now  existing  entity.  Its  fundamental  character  is  a 
positive  awareness  of  an  area  and  quality  of  self-maintenance 
operating  by  'inclusion/  The  nature  of  individuality  is  self- 
transcendence,  a  continual  going  beyond  limits.  The  principle  of 
continuity,  therefore,  shows  the  impossibility  of  setting  limits  to 
individuality,  and  the  necessity  of  extending  this  principle  to  the 

47  Op.  cit.,  p.   127. 

48  Ibid.,  p.   136.     Italics    mine. 

49  Ibid.,  p.  133. 

50  See   note    51. 


80    SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

universe  as  a  whole.51  Once  it  is  seen  that  there  can  be  no  ulti- 
mate individual  short  of  the  universe,  individuality  is  understood 
as  wholeness,  as  the  final  principle  of  universality  and  value. 
Only  so  is  individuality  freed  from  the  particularity  and  negative 
character  of  personal  consciousness. 

This  broader  view  of  individuality  carries  us  beyond  a  teleology 
defined  in  terms  of  the  satisfaction  of  personal  ends  or  desires. 
The  object  of  concern  becomes  instead  logical  '  satisfactoriness ' 
or  value.52  For  all  positive  pleasures  and  satisfactions  have  their 
character  grounded  beyond  themselves  in  the  logical  stability  or 
inherent  wholeness  of  the  desired  ends.53  To  say  that  "'the 
man  wants  it/  "  Bosanquet  says,  "  means  that  under  all  the  con- 
ditions of  the  situation  he  finds  in  himself  a  contradiction  if  he 
does  not  have  it."54  The  test  of  '  satisfactoriness '  is  wholeness. 
Reality  has  the  same  ultimate  criterion  for  value  as  for  relations. 
It  should  be  noted,  however,  that  conation  does  not  wholly  disap- 
pear on  this  view,  but  persists  as  a  factor  in  value  or,  as  Bosan- 
quet sometimes  calls  it,  in  'ideal  teleology/  Yet  what  remains 
is  not  the  conation  of  exclusive  particularity  but  "  a  conation  of 
all  towards  all/'55  accompanied  by  harmonious  fruition  such  as 
transcends  the  '  vital  series '  of  hunger  and  satiety. 

The  law  of  Nature,  the  law  of  the  whole,  is  ultimately  seen  to 
consist  in  the  harmony  of  '  ideal  teleology '  or  value  with  logical 
system.  In  this  wider  form,  the  narrow  opposition  of  subjective 
teleology  and  mechanism  is  finally  reconciled.  Bosanquet  may  be 
said  to  have  met  the  problem  of  law  in  two  ways.  He  has  faced 

si  Op.  cit.,  p.  309.  "  If  a  man  denied  his  unity  with  others,  .  .  .  why 
should  he  assume  his  unity  with  himself?  But,  again,  if  he  postulates  his 
unity  with  himself,  how  can  he  deny  his  unity  with  the  further  stages  of 
individuality?  There  seems  no  reason  for  drawing  a  line  at  which  the  con- 
tinuity is  to  break  off,  and  prima  facie  the  inference  is  to  a  unitary  perfection 
lying  in  the  complete  individuality  of  the  universe." 

52  Bosanquet,  Proceedings  of  the  Aristotelian  Society,  N.   S.,  Vol.  XII,  p. 
250,   "  And,  therefore,  I  believe  that  value  lies  deeper,  and  is  not  conferred 
by  de  facto  satisfying  a  conation,  but  is  in  satisfactoriness  rather  than  satis- 
faction— in    the    character    of    completeness    and    positive    non-contradiction 
which  gives  the  power  to  satisfy  conations,  because  it  belongs  to  what  unites 
all  reality  in  itself." 

53  Principle,  p.  298. 
64  Ibid.,  p.  165. 

55  Proceedings  of  the  Aristotelian  Society,  N.  S.,  Vol.  XII  p.  251. 


LOGICAL  INTERPRETATION.  8 1 

it  as  the  narrower  issue  of  mechanism  and  teleology,  and  has 
shown  how  it  opens  out  to  a  wider  solution  as  the  relation  of 
logic  and  value.  Perhaps  this  double  attitude  may  be  taken,  on 
the  one  hand,  as  representing  his  objective  idealism,  on  the  other, 
as  his  '  speculative  philosophy.'56 

As  an  exponent  of  objective  idealism,  and  in  line  with  the  tra- 
dition of  Green,  Wallace  and  Edward  Caird,  Bosanquet  has 
sought  to  free  mechanism  from  domination  by  the  spatial  analogy, 
and  teleology  from  subjective  personalism.  He  insists  that  the 
type  of  the  mechanical  system  is  not  the  material  object  exclu- 
sively, nor  is  that  of  the  teleological  whole  the  subjective  con- 
sciousness. The  best  example  of  both  mechanism  and  teleology 
is  rather  to  be  found  in  the  organic  being.  Mechanism,  he  in- 
terprets in  a  sense  akin  to  system.57  The  question  as  to  the  kind 
of  elements  in  the  system  is  a  secondary  question  of  fact,  to  be 
settled  by  plain  probabilities.  Teleology  is  interpreted  as  the 
manifestation  of  objective  purpose,  of  determination  by  the 
whole.58 

From  his  wider  attitude  of  '  speculative  philosophy/  Bosanquet 
regards  mechanism  and  teleology  as  passing  beyond  themselves 
and  becoming  logic  and  value.  Once  mechanism  is  freed  from 
restriction  to  physical  objects,  it  is  seen  as  a  category  of  the  uni- 
verse as  a  whole.  Teleology,  likewise,  when  freed  from  restric- 
tion to  subjective  consciousness,  becomes  a  category.  Indeed, 
under  their  cosmic  character  of  wholeness,  mechanism  and  tele- 
ology are  more  than  particular  categories.  They  become  the  two 
final  complementary  aspects  of  the  real.  Mechanism  ceases  to  be 
a  subordinate,  universal  aspect  of  things,  and  is  recognized  as  log- 
ical system.  Teleology  ceases  to  be  mere  objective  purpose,  and 
becomes  'speculative  teleology'  or  value.  Logic  and  value  are 
the  ultimate  correlative  characters  of  individuality  or  concrete  law. 

A  misunderstanding  of  the  relation  of  mechanism  and  teleology 

56  Bosanquet  has  lately  declined  the  term  '  idealism  '  for  himself,  and  sug- 
gested in  its  place  the  name  '  speculative '  or  *  constructive  philosophy.'     (Cf. 
Philosophical  Review,  Vol.  XXVI,  pp.  4-1 5-) 

57  Bosanquet,   Proceedings   of   the   Aristotelian   Society,   N.    S.,   Vol.   XII, 
P-  243. 

58  Principle,  p.    138.     "  Objectiveness   of  selection  ...  is  the  test  of  true 
*  teleology.'  " 


82          SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS   OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

in  law  has  led  certain  writers  to  set  up  a  disjunction,  an  insoluble 
antinomy,  between  a  mechanical  naturalism  and  a  Ideological 
idealism.59  Bosanquet  exhibits  the  falseness  of  this  antinomy  by 
discovering  how  the  contradiction  is  overcome  in  experience. 
Mechanism  and  teleology,  as  they  appear  in  the  real  world,  are 
not  exclusive  of  each  other,  but  are  mutually  necessary  and  com- 
plementary. Each  would  cease  to  be  significant  without  the  other. 
As  he  expresses  it,  "  a  total  failure  of  mechanical  intelligibility 
would  reduce  the  spiritual  to  the  miraculous,  the  negation  of  all 
spirituality,  as  a  total  failure  of  teleological  intelligibility  would 
reduce  individuality  to  incoherence,  and  annihilate  mechanism."60 
Such  complementariness  in  no  way  implies  that  the  universality 
of  one  excludes  or  hinders  the  range  of  the  other.  "  The  mechan- 
ical appearance  must  be  granted  to  be  universal  and  unbroken."61 
Likewise  no  limits  can  be  placed  to  the  operation  of  teleology. 
For,  whether  it  be  in  the  curl  of  a  wave  or  the  motion  of  a  solar 
system,  everywhere  we  find  determination  by  the  nature  of  the 
whole.62  The  contrast  between  mechanism  and  teleology  arises 
from  the  double  nature  of  totality,  which  reveals  itself  as  '  identity 
in  difference/  as  equivalence  between  two  correlative  systems. 

Further  evidence  is  afforded  by  experience  for  the  correlativity 
of  these  two  aspects  of  the  real  under  their  '  speculative '  forms 
of  value  and  logical  system.  Values  are  everywhere  dependent 
upon  logic  and  logic  upon  values.  As  an  example  of  the  first, 
value  judgments  always  appear  susceptible  of  modification  through 
logical  argument.  Again,  the  core  of  conation  is  not  pursuit  of 
personal  satisfaction,  but  the  power  of  the  idea  of  a  logically 
harmonious  system  upon  us.  On  the  other  hand,  the  truths  of 
logic  are  dependent  for  certainty  upon  the  degree  of  their  involve- 
ment in  experience.  Also,  spirituality  and  systematic  intelligi- 

59  One  of  the  clearest  expressions  of  this  view  is  found  in  Ward's  Natural- 
ism and  Agnosticism.     Pragmatism,  anti-intellectualism  and  voluntarism  make 
the  same  mistake.     They  mistake  mechanism  for  a  'nightmare  of  advancing 
tide   of  matter  and  tightening  grasp  of  law,'  thereby  failing  to   realize  that 
reality  may  have  a  universal  aspect  of  mechanical  law,  yet  remain  far  more 
than  can  be  expressed  by  the  mechanical  categories. 

60  Principle,  pp.  155-156.     However,  Bosanquet  appears  to  grant  that  tele- 
ology might  more  easily  'be  supposed  absent  than  mechanism. 

61  Bosanquet,  Proceedings  of  the  British  Academy,  1905-1906,  p.  240. 

62  Principle,  pp.  147-149. 


LOGICAL   INTERPRETATION.  3-2 

bility  appear  in  experience  not  as  opposed,  but  convergent.  We 
are  accustomed  to  look  for  the  differentia  of  the  spiritual  in  the 
most  comprehensively  organized  and  determinate  systems.  In 
all  these  ways  experience  points  to  logic  and  value  as  reciprocal 
and  correlative.63 

Totality  reveals  this  double  aspect,  because  it  is  both  an  indi- 
vidual whole  and  a  system  of  '  interacting  members.'  It  mani- 
fests its  two-fold  nature  according  to  the  principle  of  wholeness, 
by  which  there  exists  reciprocal  adaptation  between  the  parts  and 
the  whole.  Its  law  is  at  once  an  expression  of  logical  mechan- 
ism and  of  the  world-plan  immanent  in  the  whole.  To  compre- 
hend this  is  to  grasp  how  mechanism  and  teleology  resolve  them- 
selves in  the  light  of  the  wider  conceptions  of  logic  and  value. 
For  in  the  last  analysis,  mechanism  regards  the  world  as  logical 
system;  while  teleology  takes  it  as  fundamentally  a  scheme  of 
values.  Mind  and  nature  are  likewise  complementary  revelations 
of  the  one  ultimate  principle.  This  ultimate  law  of  the  whole 
reveals  itself  as  a  perfect  individual  system  organized  as  an 
equivalence  of  relations  and  values. 

63  Bosanquet  appears  to  forget  sometimes  to  regard  teleology  in  its  cosmic 
character  of  wholeness,  or  value,  as  equally  basic  with  logic.  As  the  point 
is  important,  an  instance  may  be  cited.  The  context  of  the  ensuing  passage 
shows  *  teleological '  to  be  used  explicitly  in  the  sense  of  '  the  world-plan 
immanent  in  the  whole.'  The  misleading  sentence  follows :  "  The  point  here 
.  .  .  depends  on  the  continuity  of  mechanism  with  the  individuality  of  the 
real,  in  virtue  of  that  deeper  aspect  of  the  latter  which  is  logical  rather  than 
teleological."  (Principle,  pp.  145-147.  Italics  mine.  Cf.  Proceedings  of  the 
British  Academy,  1905-1906,  p.  240.)  Now  it  is  vital  to  Bosanquet's  stand- 
point that  he  should  hold  strictly  to  the  fundamental  identity  of  cosmic 
teleology  (value)  and  logic.  To  permit  himself  to  speak  of  reality  as  in  a 
deeper  sense  logical  than  teleological,  is  to  slip  for  the  moment  into  the  ab- 
stract thinking  of  the  old  formal  logic.  It  is  such  passages  that  lend  some 
shade  of  justification  to  the  criticism  that  his  view  tends  to  pure  logical 
determinism  and  a  logical  naturalism.  An  interesting  light  on  this  tendency 
in  Bosanquet  is  revealed  by  his  own  admission  that  he  once  thought  logic 
'the  whole  of  philosophy'  (Proceedings  of  the  Aristotelian  Society,  N.  S.. 
Vol.  XV,  p.  6).  Pringle-Pattison  in  his  recent  volume  of  Gifford  Lectures 
has  strongly  emphasized  the  central  importance  of  teleology  for  a  philosophy 
grounded  in  objective  idealistic  modes  of  thinking.  But  it  is  a  question 
whether  Pringle-Pattison  does  not  err  through  too  much  stress  on  the  teleo- 
logical, and  by  inevitable  over-suggestion  of  its  'humanistic'  value.  Perhaps 
in  the  end,  it  is  Bosanquet  who  most  nearly  maintains  the  balance  in  giving 
both  value  and  logic  their  due  as  the  two  fundamental  aspects  of  totality. 


PART  III. 
CONCLUSION. 

In  the  previous  chapters,  two  opposed  interpretations  of  natural 
law  have  been  set  forth  as  following  from  two  general  views  of 
experience.  The  purpose  of  the  concluding  chapter  is  to  state, 
without  the  detail  of  supporting  arguments,  the  main  logical  con- 
sequences of  these  views,  and  to  bring  the  conclusions  together 
in  such  a  way  as  to  make  clear  their  comparative  adequacy  and 
'depth.  The  chief  objections  to  the  psychological  conception 
of  natural  law,  which  render  it  impossible  to  accept,  will  first  be 
considered.  Following  this,  the  outstanding  characteristics  of 
the  logical  view  will  be  summarized.  The  attempt  will  be  to 
show  that  only  on  a  logical  interpretation  can  law  be  regarded  as 
truly  universal,  individual,  evolutional  and  teleological.  By 
seriously  questioning  the  validity  of  subjective  teleology  as  a 
principle,  the  special  stronghold  of  the  psychological  position  has 
been  invaded.  The  tendency  to  emphasize  purpose  and  spiritual 
direction,  as  found  in  the  writings  of  Ward  and  Royce,  has  gained 
wide  acceptance  among  those  who  stop  with  special  arguments 
or  are  concerned  to  save  one  vital  demand  of  experience,  even  at 
the  price  of  another.  But  though  subjectivism  claims  to  have 
safeguarded  what  is  most  precious  in  experience, — meaning  and 
value, — it  has  become  more  and  more  evident  as  our  study  has 
proceeded  that  in  the  championship  of  a  supposed  '  individuality 
and  value,'  the  reality  of  nature  and  law  has  been  virtually  de- 
nied. In  a  final  estimate  of  the  two  standpoints,  it  will  be  shown 
that  true  value  implies  uniform  law  as  its  indispensable  counter- 
part; that  a  nature  conceived  in  terms  of  uniform  law  is  real 
equally  with  self  and  consciousness ;  and  that  no  view  can  satisfy 
both  theory  and  practice,  unless  it  can  conserve  every  aspect  of 
the  world  in  a  comprehensive  system. 

The  validity  of  the  psychological  interpretation  may  be  estimated 
first.  Such  a  view,  as  has  been  shown,  reduces  nature  to  terms 

84 


CONCLUSION.  g^ 

of  subjects  and  their  mental  states  and  construes  natural  law  as 
modes  of  behavior.  The  very  existence  of  nature  is  based  on  the 
proof  of  the  existence  of  our  fellows,  and  the  essence  of  nature 
is  found  in  its  social  character.  Accordingly,  the  relation  between 
the  ego  and  its  fellows,  or  some  form  of  social  interaction,  be- 
comes the  type  of  law.1  Natural  law  is  a  statement  of  the  habits 
of  intercourse  of  individuals  in  a  panpsychical  society. 

Yet  a  host  of  difficulties  connected  with  the  psychological  view 
of  interaction  seem  to  render  this  interpretation  of  law  hopelessly 
untenable.  Though  interaction  in  some  form  appears  to  be  the 
type  of  law  to  which  panpsychism  is  logically  driven,  even  its 
representatives  are  unable  to  hold  to  the  conception  with  any  de- 
gree of  consistency,  and  they  constantly  take  refuge  in  various 
other  explanations  of  law.  The  chief  inconsistencies  in  the  pan- 
psychical  view  of  law  may  be  summarized  as  follows : 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  difficult  to  understand  how  the  conception 
of  law  as  the  interaction  of  selves  can  be  reconciled  with  the  sta- 
tistical view  of  law.  Ward  and  Royce,  for  instance,  both  regard 
natural  laws  as  comparable  to  statistical  averages.  But  if  laws 
are  truly  living  modes  of  individual  behavior,  how  can  they  at 
the  same  time  be  products  of  the  abstract  law  of  probability  ?  To 
this  question  two  answers  are  given.  First,  the  upholder  of  the 
panpsychical  view  tries  to  show  that  physical  laws  represent  a 
degeneration  from  psychical  action.  Law  and  order  are  only  a 
gradual  development  in  the  world.  Originally,  according  to 
Ward's  account,  conative  beings  interacted  by  ' chance'  in  pur- 
suance of  their  several  impulses ;  i.e.,  only  gradually  did  they 
come  to  have  ends  in  common.  As  their  ends  became  socialized, 
these  took  on  the  character  of  habits  or  automatisms  and  degen- 
erated to  the  level  of  physical  laws.2  Laws,  therefore,  owe  their 

i  Ward  explicitly  defends  interaction  as  the  relation  of  the  psycho-physical 
orders  in  his  discussion  of  mind  and  body,  Supplement  III,  The  Realm 
of  Ends. 

2Cf.  A.  S.  Pringle-Pattison,  The  Idea  of  God,  pp.  183-186.  Though 
Royce  does  not  agree  to  Ward's  representation  of  primitive  consciousness  as 
egoistic  and  solitary,  he  is  at  one  with  him  in  conceiving  natural  law,  (i)  as 
development  of  the  evolutionary  tendency  away  from  chance  toward  orderly 
co-operation;  (2)  as  habit;  (3)  as  'natural'  because  shared  and  social. 


86    SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

statistical  expression,  their  approximate  and  depersonalized 
form:  (i)  to  the  fact  that  chance  remains  a  guiding  principle  in 
the  world,  owing  to  the  imperfect  evolution  of  order  at  the  pres- 
ent time;  (2)  to  the  fact  that  physical  laws  are  psychical  actions  / 
that  have  reverted  to  automatisms;  and  (3)  to  the  truth  that 
what  is  shared  ceases  to  be  unique,  and  ipso  facto  becomes  part  of 
the  impersonal  external  order.  In  criticism,  it  may  be  said  that  an 
account  of  the  historical  genesis  of  law  affords  no  logical  explana- 
tion of  law.  Indeed,  as  we  suggested  earlier  in  this  study,  no 
logical  explanation  can  be  given.  For  if  law  is  a  product  of  evo- 
lution, chance  and  not  law  is  presupposed  as  its  condition. 
Moreover,  the  panpsychist's  historical  and  metaphysical  accounts 
of  law  do  not  agree.  If  metaphysical  panpsychism  represents 
law  truly  as  the  unique  personal  relations  of  individuals,  then  the 
statistical  view  of  law  as  approximate  and  impersonal  is  inade- 
quate to  the  living  facts.  If  laws  express  the  behavior  of  sub- 
jects like  ourselves,  we  cannot  but  regard  them  as  unique  personal 
relations,  no  matter  how  habitual.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the 
historical  or  statistical  account  of  law  is  true,  metaphysical  pan- 
psychism would  appear  to  be  only  a  mythological  dressing  of 
the  facts. 

But  the  advocate  of  this  view  makes  a  second  attempt  to  recon- 
cile statistical  law  with  interaction.  Unmindful  that  he  has  argued 
for  the  statistical  form  as  objective  in  the  nature  of  things,  he 
next  declares  law  to  be  subjective  and  methodological.  The  treat- 
ment of  laws  as  statistical  averages  is  a  mere  methodological 
fiction  to  enable  the  scientist  to  handle  beings  en  masse  by  ignor- 
ing their  individualities.  The  statistical  form  is  '  appearance,' 
and  not  the  real  nature  of  law.  Such  an  account  obviously  offers 
no  solution  of  the  contradiction  between  statistical  law  and  inter- 
action. For  if  denied  all  objective  truth,  what  use  has  the  sta- 
tistical view  ?  Scientific  hypotheses  or  methodological  fictions  are 
usually  constructed  in  accordance  with  the  true  facts  so  far  as 
known,  and  not  in  opposition  to  them.  For  the  panpsychist,  who 
regards  law  as  really  consisting  in  the  interaction  of  persons,  it 
is  at  the  least  unscientific  to  treat  law  statistically,  that  is,  as 
directly  different  from  what  he  otherwise  knows  it  to  be. 


CONCLUSION.  87 

A  second  difficulty  in  the  panpsychical  view  of  law  is  the 
contradiction  between  law  as  conative  and  as  epistemological. 
The  inconsistency  is  clear  in  Ward.  On  the  one  hand,  he  defines 
law  as  the  behavior  of  free  conative  individuals.  Law  is  the 
expression  of  an  intelligence  "  interacting  in  its  own  peculiar 
manner  with  other  subjects."3  "  May  we  not  regard  each  indi- 
vidual subject,  everything  that  is  anything  for  itself  and  in  itself, 
as  a  living  law  ?  "  But  over  against  this  view  of  law  as  the  spon- 
taneous self-expression  of  subjects,  Ward  holds  to  a  Kantian  be- 
lief in  natural  law  as  a  logical  postulate.4  We  have  to  presuppose 
universal  and  necessary  law  before  experience  can  be  explained. 
But  it  may  be  asked  how  can  this  conception  of  law  as  an  episte- 
mological necessity  be  in  harmony  with  "  living  law,"  law  as  the 
free  expression  of  the  individual  will?  Ward's  own  belief  is  ap- 
parently that  he  reconciles  the  two  by  harmonizing  rational  neces- 
sity with  freedom.5  But  it  has  already  been  shown  that  he  is 
not  successful.6  Purposive  activity  or  freedom  in  Ward's  system 
is  conceived  as  essentially  outside  and  opposed  to  logical  deter- 
minism. The  only  conclusion  is,  therefore,  that  in  viewing  law 
at  once  as  an  epistemological  necessity  and  as  the  free  expression 
of  conative  individuals,  Ward  involves  himself  in  contradiction. 

In  Royce's  view,  the  same  contradiction  occurs  between  the 
epistemological  and  conative  standpoints.  Here  the  inconsistency 
is  somewhat  hidden  by  the  emphasis  on  the  social  utility  of  law. 
But  the  root  of  the  trouble  rests  in  Royce's  attempt  to  conceive 
natural  laws  both  as  the  pre-condition  of  social  life  (following 
Kant)  yet  as  gaining  their  significance  genetically  and  empirically 
in  social  life.  When  he  is  considering  law  epistemologically,  he 
speaks  of  universal  law  as  a  '  leading  idea,'  as  "  in  Kant's  phrase, 
...  a  regulative  principle  ...  of  research."7  In  the  history  of 
mankind,  the  discovery  of  uniform  laws  has  been  "  the  condition 
for  the  organization  of  definite  customs"8  and  social  life.  On 

3  Ward,  Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,  3rd  ed.,  Vol.  II,  p.  280. 

4  Ibid.,  p.  250. 

5  1 bid.,  p.  281. 

6  P.  43  of  this  study. 

7  J.  Royce,  Science,  Vol.  XXXVIII,  p.  581. 

8  J.  Royce,  The  World  and  the  Individual,  2nd  ser.,  p.  193.     Italics  mine. 


88    SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

the  other  hand,  law  gains  significance  through  the  results  it 
achieves  in  experience.  Interest  in  industrial  art,  commerce  and 
custom  led  to  the  present  authority  of  natural  law.9  Scientific 
laws  have  to  survive  not  only  the  historical  test  by  society  in  gen- 
eral, but  must  receive  the  sanction  of  their  special  scientific  com- 
munities.10 Yet  how  is  this  view  of  law  as  the  free  conscious 
expression  of  social  will  compatible  with  the  previous  conception 
of  law  as  an  epistemological  necessity  ? 

The  point  to  be  urged  against  these  thinkers  is  that  they  in- 
volve themselves  in  a  contradiction  by  attempting  to  conceive  law 
both  as  the  expression  of  conative  individuals  beyond  law  and  as 
an  epistemological  necessity  of  all  experience.  In  such  systems, 
where  purposive  activity  is  set  outside  the  causal  series,  law  can- 
not be  at  once  conative  and  logical  in  character.  Indeed,  it  might 
be  charged  as  a  basic  inconsistency  of  the  whole  psychological 
view  that  it  makes  conation  and  not  cognition  the  central  feature 
of  mind,  thereby  renouncing  the  entire  epistemological  and 
rationalistic  method. 

A  third  difficulty  in  the  panpsychical  view  of  law  is  the  tend- 
ency to  parallelism.  Royce,  for  instance,  conceives  the  structure 
of  the  world  and  of  individual  minds  as  so  many  self -representa- 
tive series  of  facts  and  ideas  in  correspondence.11  A  similar 
parallelism  is  found  in  Ward's  notion  that  the  universal  and  the 
particular  are  never  reconciled  "  save  by  traversing  an  intermin- 
able series."12  But  the  infinite  series  is  not  an  adequate  type  of 
law  to  express  the  relations  of  living  sub j  ects  with  each  other.  Con- 
scious subjects  are  related  in  societies,  not  in  corresponding  series. 
The  infinite  series  has  no  real  interaction  between  its  members; 
they  simply  stand  in  a  one-to-one  correspondence.  Moreover 
the  self-representative  series  represents  law,  in  form  at  least,  as 
a  two-sided  relation.  But  panpsychism  has  analyzed  away  one 
side  of  the  relation ;  for  it,  the  series  of  objects  corresponding  to 
the  subject  simply  disappears.  Not  paralleism,  but  some  form  of 

9  Op.  cit.,  p.  195. 

10  J.  Royce,  The  Problem  of  Christianity,  Vol.  II,  p.  227. 
n  Cf.  note  29,  Pt.  I,  Ch.  I,  of  this  study. 

12  Ward,  Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,  3rd  ed.,  Vol.  II,  p.  282. 


CONCLUSION. 


89 


interaction  would  have  to  express  the  relations  of  pure  subjects. 
Ward,  indeed,  takes  this  stand  when  he  declares  the  relation  of 
mind  and  body  to  be  "  an  internal  or  intersubjective  relation."13 
The  relation  of  monads  is  "not  that  of  subject  to  object,  but 
rather  that  of  subject  to  subject,"  an  "immediate  rapport"  or 
"  telepathy."1*  The  example  of  this  relation  easiest  to  understand 
perhaps  is  that  of  a  society,  or  any  organization  dependent  for  its 
existence  on  the  cooperation  of  members.  Everywhere  this  direct 
interaction  of  subject  with  subject  is  the  ultimate  form  of  rela- 
tion. In  the  last  analysis,  panpsychism  reverts  to  interaction  as 
the  type  of  law.  Yet  because  of  the  dualism  in  its  view,  it  is  con- 
stantly tempted  to  utilize  conceptions  of  parallelism. 

In  a  final  estimate  of  the  panpsychical  interpretation  of  law, 
Bosanquet's  chief  criticism  may  be  introduced.  While  his  objec- 
tions are  aimed  at  the  panpsychical  theory  of  nature  as  a  whole, 
their  implication  as  regards  the  special  problem  of  law  is  clear 
enough.  In  the  first  place,  Bosanquet  holds  panpsychism  destroys 
the  true  relations  of  our  experience.  It  is  based  on  the  denial  of 
nature  as  externality ;  and  to  deny  nature  as  such  is  to  repudiate 
the  whole  fabric  of  our  daily  life.  "What  becomes  of  the  ma- 
terial incidents  of  life — of  our  food,  our  clothes,  our  country,  our 
own  bodies  ?  Is  it  not  obvious  that  our  relation  to  these  things  is 
essential  to  finite  being,  and  that  if  they  are  in  addition  subjective 
psychical  centres  their  subjective  psychical  quality  is  one  which 
so  far  as  realized  would  destroy  their  function  and  character  for 
us?"15  The  acceptance  of  universal  animism  as  the  law  of  our 
workaday  world  would  turn  that  world  topsyturvy.  It  is  as  ex- 
ternality, as  outer,  that  nature  plays  its  great  role  in  our  life. 
Nature  is  our  realm  of  means  and  tools,  not  a  realm  of  ends  or 
persons.  We  use  a  knife  to  cut  with ;  in  no  sense  do  we  regard  it 
as  a  conscious  being.  To  envisage  our  relations  with  nature  as 
interaction  with  persons  is  ridiculous.  If  such  a  law  could  stand, 
it  would  involve  the  reductio  ad  absurdum  of  the  whole  of  our 
experience. 

13  Ward,  The  Realm  of  Ends,  p.  467. 

14  Ibid.,  p.  463. 

is  Principle,  p.  363. 


90    SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

Further,  by  analyzing  nature  into  conscious  subjects,  pan- 
psychism  denies  the  reality  of  experience  as  a  subject-object  rela-"1 
tion.  Objects  or  outward  appearances  are  analyzed  away.  Only 
a  world  of  pure  subjects  remains.  "  All  externality  is  dissolved 
away,  i.e.,  all  outward  appearance  becomes  resolvable  ad  infinitum 
into  spirits."16  "It  is  a  blunder  of  principle,"  says  Bosanquet, 
"  to  analyse  the  outer  into  a  series  of  inner  deprived  of  all  outer." 
To  reduce  the  world  to  pure  subjectivity  is  to  reduce  it  to  form- 
lessness. The  law  is  that  experience  has  always  an  outer  as  well 
as  an  inner  aspect.  Each  aspect  gains  significance  through  the 
other.  Pure  internality  without  externality  would  be  formless 
and  lawless,  a  welter  of  subjectivity  without  a  world  on  which 
to  act.17 

The  panpsychist  endeavors  to  meet  this  criticism.  He  points 
out,  for  instance,  that  panpsychism  does  not  seek  to  destroy  the 
appearance  of  externality.18  He  protests  he  understands  per- 
fectly that  subject  can  never  know  bare  subject.  The  object 
which  the  subject  perceives  in  experience  is  always  the  appear- 
ance of  another  subject.  "All  perceptual  objects,"  as  Ward  ex- 
presses it,  "  are  manifestations  of  subjects  or  ejects"19 — not  bare 
subjects  themselves.  This  protest  of  the  panpsychist  amounts  to 
the  admission  that  he  wishes  to  recognize  experience  as  involv- 
ing relation  to  an  object,  even  while  at  the  same  time  he  knows 
the  object  is  in  reality  a  subject  like  himself. 

But  this  admission  involves  a  difficulty.  It  is  only  by  an  uncon- 
scious shift  that  the  panpsychist  persuades  himself  that  he  re- 
duces the  object  to  terms  of  subject  without  destroying  the  form 
of  experience  as  a  subject-object  relation.  To  detect  the  fallacy, 
the  general  procedure  must  be  recalled  by  which  the  psychological 
view  arrives  at  panpsychism.  Roughly  it  is  as  follows: — (a)  All 

16  Op.  cit.,  p.  76. 

17  Pure  internality  would  be  as  formless  as  Pascal's  sphere  with  its  center 
everywhere  and  circumference  nowhere.     As  Bosanquet  says :  "  A  world  can- 
not consist  of  spiritual  centers  without  circumferences,  nor  can  they  as  in- 
ward centers  in  the  popular  sense,  form  circumferences  for  each  other." 

is  Cf.  C.  A.  Richardson,  "  On  Certain  Criticisms  of  Pluralism,"  Mind, 
N.  S.,  Vol.  XXVIII,  pp.  55-56.  Richardson,  a  follower  of  Ward,  here  under- 
takes to  answer  some  of  Bosanquet's  criticisms. 

19  Ward,  The  Realm  of  Ends,  p.  217. 


CONCLUSION.  QJ 

objects  are  perceptual  objects,  (b)  One  class  of  objects (  viz., 
the  bodies  of  our  fellows)  we  know  to  have  an  inner  life  corre- 
sponding to  their  perceptual  aspect.20  (c)  Therefore,  from  the 
principle  of  Continuity,  we  may  infer  that  all  objects  have  an 
inner  life  corresponding  to  their  perceptual  aspect. 

The  crux  of  the  matter  is  the  second  statement.  What  is  the 
basis  of  our  knowledge  that  our  fellows  posses  this  second,  inner 
type  of  existence?  (i)  If  it  is  by  inference,  it  must  be  by  infer- 
ring from  the  ego's  own  mental  states.  For  the  ultimate  assump- 
tion is  that  these  furnish  us  our  immediate,  primary  criterion  of 
knowledge.  But  why,  then,  should  we  infer  these  particular  ob- 
jects (the  bodies  of  our  fellows)  to  be  manifestations  of  a  subject 
other  than  ourselves?  The  only  subject  of  which  each  has  imme- 
diate knowledge  is  his  own  ego.21  Entities  should  not  be  need- 
lessly multiplied.  In  inferring  an  inner  life  behind  externality, 
we  read  it  in  terms  of  our  own  ego  as  criterion ;  logically  therefore 
we  have  no  right  to  refer  it  to  any  source  outside  our  own  ego. 
But  this  would  tend  to  solipsism.  (2)  On  the  other  hand,  if  it 
be  said  that  we  know  our  fellows  directly  through  their  immediate 
presence  to  consciousness,  this  supposes  bare  subject  can  know 
bare  subject.  But  for  subject  to  know  bare  subject  contradicts 
experience  as  a  subject-object  relation.  The  conclusion  is  that 
panpsychism  can  not,  in  accordance  with  its  presuppositions,  re- 
duce the  object  (externality)  to  terms  of  the  subject  without 
destroying  the  essential  nature  of  experience  as  a  subject-object 
relation. 

Another  objection  to  the  panpsychical  view  of  law,  implied  in 
Bosanquet's  criticism,  is  that  it  makes  law  a  property  or  function 
of  individual  mind.  The  nature  of  mind,  he  holds,  is  thereby 
misinterpreted.  Mind  cannot  be  equated  with  a  mere  particular 
mode  of  being,  or  identified  with  collections  of  psychical  states. 
From  the  logical  point  of  view,  mind  is  a  universalizing  activity, 

20  Royce,   Studies  of  Good  and  Evil,  p.   203.     Taylor,  Elements  of  Meta- 
physics, p.  203. 

21  Strictly   one   could  push  the  argument  so   as  to  deny  the  psychological 
idealist  even  solipsism,  and  leave  him  with  no  more  than  a  point  of  experi- 
ence.    For  his  immediately  known  ego  would  appear  to  be  a  mental  state  of 
any  degree  of  evanescence. 


92  SOME  MODERN   CONCEPTIONS   OF   NATURAL  LAW. 

the  power  of  forming  wholes.  In  a  sense,  mind  is  everywhere. 
It  is  the  principle  of  wholeness  in  experience  which  binds  together 
the  particulars,  yet  is  itself  no  mere  particular.  Mind,  in  this 
sense,  is  different  from  the  psychological,  individual  minds  which 
panpsychism  makes  the  source  of  law.  Panpsychism  interprets 
all  mind  on  the  analogy  of  finite  consciousness,  and  raises  finite 
subjects  or  a  'theistic  Demiurge7  to  the  guidance  and  mastery  of 
nature.  Panpsychism  has  no  logical  principle  of  law,  no  principle 
of  mind-in-general;  law  for  it  is  only  a  function  of  particular 
conscious  centres. 

Particular  mind  is  the  mind  which  is  opposed  to  nature.  Be- 
cause it  has  interpreted  mind  on  the  pattern  of  finite  conscious- 
ness, panpsychism  must  vindicate  the  power  of  mind  by  discredit- 
ing objective  nature.  It  must  show  that  this  mind,  which  it  has 
set  up  as  the  ultimate  power  in  the  universe,  is  the  master,  not 
the  slave  of  nature.  Accordingly,  panpsychism  brushes  aside  the 
whole  magnificent  spectacle  of  an  opposed  inanimate  nature.  In 
nature  it  sees  only  "a  masked  and  enfeebled  section  of  the 
subject-world."22  By  a  far-fetched  analogy  of  nature  to  mind, 
and  in  the  face  of  plain  probabilities  in  the  facts,  consciousness  is 
read  high  and  low  throughout  the  external  world.  The  laws  of 
nature  accordingly  are  interpreted  only  as  the  individual  modes 
of  subjective  consciousness. 

On  the  logical  view,  a  simple  interpretation  of  the  facts  carries 
a  conclusion  opposed  to  panpsychism.  Externality  can  not  be  a 
mere  eject  of  consciousness ;  a  truer  view  is  to  regard  conscious- 
ness as  a  development  of  externality.  In  Bosanquet's  words, 
consciousness  is  "the  fact  of  self-guidance  of  that  world  which 
appears  as  matter,  when  that  reaches  a  certain  level  of  organiza- 
tion."23 There  is  everywhere  evidence  pointing  to  "conscious 
process  as  the  essence  of  a  certain  kind  of  physical  process."2* 
The  plain  probabilities  indicate  that  mind  (in  the  narrow  sense  of 
consciousness)  is  not  ultimate.  The  power  of  a  directive  prin- 
ciple beyond  individual  consciousness  is  shown  in  developments 

22  Principle,  p.  369. 

23  Ibid.,  pp.   193,  194. 

24  Ibid.,  p.  197. 


CONCLUSION,  93 

such  as  the  state  and  society,  and  no  less  in  'natural  selection' 
and  organic  regulation.25  Another  great  work  of  direction  un- 
ascribable  to  consciousness  exists  in  the  vast  continuity  and  adap- 
tation between  the  organic  and  inorganic  worlds.  The  close  rela- 
tion between  the  earth's  geological  structure  and  its  social  and 
historical  teleology  may  be  cited  as  an  instance.  The  body  of 
experience  represented  by  such  facts  brings  home  the  truth  that 
mind  and  the  work  of  mind  can  not  be  limited  to  subjective  con- 
sciousness. Mind  must  be  rather  an  active  logical  principle,  a 
certain  organization  of  the  facts  of  experience,  to  which  we  give 
but  one  name,  whether  it  emerges  as  a  conscious  centre,  an  ob- 
jective institution  or  a  natural  process.  The  laws  of  nature, 
therefore,  are  the  expression  of  mind  as  a  logical  principle. 
They  extend  throughout  the  universe,  and  include  the  supra- 
individual  and  the  inanimate  world  no  less  than  subjective  mind 
and  its  institutions. 

Those  holding  the  psychological  view  have  an  answer  to  this 
logical  interpretation  of  mind.  In  the  first  place,  they  question 
the  evidence.  They  hold  that  there  are  no  cases  of  organic  regu- 
lation where  consciousness  can  certainly  be  asserted  to  be  absent.26 
They  would  go  on  to  urge  that  great  organizations  like  the  state, 
religion  and  art  acquire  their  significance  entirely  through  refer- 
ence to  an  evaluating  consciousness.  Bosanquet's  view  of  con- 
sciousness as  a  certain  pattern  emerging  in  nature,  which  yields 
the  'meaning  of  externality'27  is  forcibly  denied.  According  to 
the  panpsychical  view,  the  'meaning'  of  anything  must  always 
signify  meaning  for  some  conscious  subject.  The  panpsychist  can 
not  conceive  how,  by  any  legerdemain,  a  conscious  subject  can  be 
turned  out  from  a  '  focus  of  externality.'  "  Externality  is  not  the 
less  externality  because  it  is  concentrated  into  a  focus."28  "  In- 
ternality  can  in  no  way  be  constructed  out  of  externality." 

The  reply  which  those  holding  the  logical  view  might  make  can 
only  be  briefly  suggested.  The  question  whether  organic  regula- 

25  Op.  cit.,  p.  195. 

26  Richardson,  Mind,  N.  S.,  Vol.  XXVIII,  p.  64. 

27  Principle,  p.  220. 

28  Richardson,  Mind,  N.  S.,  Vol.  XXVIII,  p.  60. 


94 


SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 


tion  is  independent  of  consciousness  is  a  matter  to  be  settled  by 
the  scientific  facts.  The  other  criticisms  may  be  met,  first,  by 
pointing  out  that  panpsychism  is  itself  guilty  of  the  very  fallacy 
of  which  it  accuses  those  holding  the  logical  position,  viz.,  of  at- 
tempting to  construct  one  half  the  real  out  of  the  other  half, — 
with  the  reversal  that  panpsychism  attempts  to  construct  exter- 
nality out  of  internality.  Further,  it  can  be  shown  that  internality, 
on  the  logical  view,  is  not  constructed,  but  emerges  or  develops 
from  externality.  Its  development,  moreover,  is  not  through  the 
mere  power  of  externality,  but  through  the  ever-present  potency 
of  the  '  whole.'  To  deny  that  internality  could  thus  emerge  from 
»  externality  would  be  to  deny  the  organic  nature  of  the  real,  its 
continuity  and  principle  of  growth.  Only  from  a  dualistic  stand- 
point, from  which  internality  and  externality  are  taken  as  dis- 
parate, does  it  become  'contradictory'  to  hold  that  internality 
may  appear  as  the  focus  of  externality. 

But  the  list  of  objections  to  the  panpsychical  view  of  law  must 
now  stand  complete.  Two  earlier  charges  may  be  recalled,  but 
not  examined:  first,  the  psychological  view  was  never  acquitted 
r  of  a  tendency  toward  solipsism;  second,  when  pushed  to  its  log- 
ical extreme,  such  a  position  raised  chance  to  an  ultimate  principle 
in  place  of  law.  For  all  these  reasons,  the  panpsychical  view  of 
law  as  the  behavior  of  conscious  subjects  must  be  rejected.  Pan- 
psychism presents  interaction  in  extreme  form.  It  seems  doubtful 
whether  interaction  in  the  sense  of  '  telepathy,' '  rapport,'  bare  sub- 
ject knowing  subject,  can  have  any  rational  meaning.  It  rather 
appears  to  pass  over  into  a  mystical  immediacy  beyond  all  relation. 
But  when  experience  ceases  to  be  a  subject-object  relation,  it  is 
incomprehensible. 

Panpsychism  made  the  type  of  law  interaction,  and  placed  the 
source  of  law  in  conscious  subjects.  This  view  has  proved  falla- 
cious. Next  to  be  considered  is  the  logical  position,  which  takes 
equivalence  as  the  form  of  law,  and  the  universal  of  concrete 
logic  as  its  principle. 

J  The  logical  view  accepts  the  physical  order  in  its  prima  facie 
aspect  and  interprets  it.  It  takes  no  fixed  datum  as  a  starting- 
point,  and  prescribes  no  formal  method  in  advance.  The  aim  of 


CONCLUSION.  .    g^ 

the  logical  standpoint  is  rather  to  learn  directly  the  principle  of 
development  from  the  world  itself.  Its  procedure  is  not  formal, 
but  'grows  like  a  tree/29  It  finds  the  assumption  of  experience 
to  be  that  the  real  is  the  whole.  The  real  must  be  that  which  in- 
cludes everything,  and  gives  everything  its  place  and  due.  And 
this  can  be  nothing  less  than  the  whole  of  experience  itself.  By 
applying  the  idea  of  wholeness  to  the  world  in  its  different  as- 
pects, the  true  nature  of  things  and  of  their  relations  is  revealed. 
A  thing,  a  person,  an  act — anything — is  only  seen  in  its  true  na- 
ture when  it  is  grasped  as  an  organized  unity,  as  a  synthesis  of 
the  manifold.  So  far  as  it  is  a  whole,  it  is  a  concrete  universal. 

This  universal  is  the  principle  of  law.  Law  is  present  in  every- 
thing that  is  natural,  individual,  fully-rounded.  Such  wholes  are 
not  bare  identities,  but  unities  of  organically  differentiated  parts. 
Because  wholeness  is  never  mere  identity,  but  always  '  identity  in 
difference,'  there  is  reason  in  principle  to  affirm  that  externality 
may  be  a  counterpart  of  mind.  Mind  and  nature  appear  to  be 
complementary  aspects  of  every  whole.  "  Each  term  seems  in- 
conceivable without  the  other."30  However,  this  is  not  to  say  that 
the  whole  can  be  reduced  entirely  to  terms  of  either  the  one  or 
the  other.  Both  are  essential  to  our  meaning  of  a  world. 
"  Nature  .  .  .  exists  only  through  finite  mind.  But  finite  minds 
again  exist  only  through  nature/'31  Without  mind,  the  world 
would  not  be  a  world;  just  as  without  a  world,  mind  would  not 
be  a  mind.  Though  opposed  in  function  to  each  other, — as  sub- 
ject and  object, — each  has  its  significance  through  the  other. 
Their  contrast  and  opposition  fall  inside  their  organic  relation. 
Here  mind  and  nature  are  not  two  defiant  powers  in  external 
contradiction,  each  denying  the  reality  of  the  other.  But  for  both 
the  whole  is  the  ultimate  principle  of  development.  And  only 
together  do  they  form  wholes. 

First,  then,  the  principle  of  law  is  universal  according  to  the 
logical  interpretation.  It  is  universal,  because  it  takes  account  of 
all  aspects  of  the  whole.  It  includes  the  opposites,  nature  and 

29  Bosanquet,  Proceedings  of  the  Aristotelian  Society,  N.  S.,  Vol.  XV,  p.  4. 
so  Principle,  p.  358. 
31  Ibid.,  p.  371. 


96    SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

mind,  without  denying  the  integrity  of  either.  Law  is  universal 
in  that  it  is  no  mere  expression  of  one  aspect  of  the  real,  but  of 
I  all  aspects  functioning  together.  That  is,  law  springs  neither 
from  mind  nor  matter,  but  from  their  organic  combination.  A 
law  having  its  source  in  only  one  phase  of  the  real  would  be  less 
than  universal. 

Equivalence  is  the  form  which  expresses  this  universality  of 
law.  Equivalence  embodies  the  principle  of  determination  by  the 
whole.  Neither  the  psychical  nor  the  physical  is  made  the  prin- 
ciple of  guidance;  both  are  subordinate  to  the  power  of  the 
totality.  At  the  same  time,  both  have  their  rights  recognized,  for 
only  through  their  union  is  the  whole  concretely  realized.  Equiva- 
lence does  not  fail  to  take  account  of  the  gap  between  the  psy- 
chical and  the  physical,  yet  implies  that  they  have  in  them  one 
common  logical  principle.  In  other  words,  though  the  qualitative 
and  quantitative  aspects  of  the  real  always  remain  arithmetically 
incommensurable  (i.e.,  though  never  reducible  to  homogeneous 
units),  they  yet  remain  broadly  comparable  as  ratios,  owing  to 
the  fact  that  they  are  complementary  phases  of  one  fundamental 
unity.  For  instance,  the  comparative  loudness  of  two  sounds  is 
quite  intelligibly  equated  with  their  vibration  numbers.  However 
rudimentary  the  example,  it  suggests  the  manner  in  which  equiva- 
lence can  treat  the  qualitative  and  the  quantitative  as  organic  to 
each  other  and  interpret  them  in  the  light  of  their  relation.  In 
brief,  equivalence  makes  law  universal  by  treating  it  in  the  form 
V  of  relations  and  not  as  mere  particulars,  relations  which  are  de- 
termined in  their  significance  by  functioning  in  a  concrete  whole. 

Second,  from  the  logical  standpoint,  lawfulness  and  individual- 
ity are  finally  seen  not  to  be  antithetical.  This  does  not  mean 
that  the  individual  can  be  reduced  to  a  sum  of  abstract  laws.  But 
a  thing  is  discovered  to  be  unique  in  so  far  as  it  is  universal ;  and 
to  have  individuality  in  so  far  as  it  has  lawfulness.  In  a  work  of 
art  or  nature,  no  less  than  in  a  machine,  the  concrete  unity  of  the 
whole  depends  upon  the  perfect  interdependence  (law)  of  the 
parts,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  relation  (law)  of  the  parts 
depends  upon  the  unity  of  the  whole  for  its  significance.  Indi- 
viduality and  law  are  complementary.  That  is,  the  individual  has 


CONCLUSION.  yj 

nothing  in  it  in  principle  which  will  resist  analysis  into  abstract 
law ;  yet  remains  itself  always  more  than  a  sum  of  abstract  laws. 
It  is  a  concrete  synthesis  of  them.  The  individual  is  an  arrange- 
ment of  laws,  a  relation  of  relations,  which  is  at  once  both  unique 
and  universal.  Empirical  analysis  cannot  discover  the  concrete 
synthesis  because  it  is  a  universal  or  active  principle  relating  the 
particular  laws  to  each  other.  Yet  such  a  synthesis  is  in  the  high- 
est degree  concrete  and  unique,  being  that  which  gives  particular 
laws  and  the  parts  their  meaning.  The  individual  is  the  principle 
of  lawfulness  completely  realized. 

In  holding  individuality  and  law  to  be  complementary,  the  log- 
ical view  implies  that  degree  of  individuality  must  be  correlated 
with  degree  of  lawfulness.  Accordingly,  the  most  unique  and 
highly  individualized  realms  of  experience,  viz.,  the  realms  of  art 
and  personality,  must  exemplify  the  rule  of  law  par  excellence. 
scientific  laws  of  physics  and  even  of  biology,  after  all, 
grasp  little  more  than  a  world  of  hypothetical  elements  and  of 
spatio-temporal  abstractions.  Scientific  law  masters  a  world  of 
very  limited  content;  and  even  this  content  always  remains  a 
datum  external  to  the  mind's  activity.  The  laws  of  the  state,  of 
religion  and  of  art,  offer  a  richer,  deeper  revelation  of  the  nature 
of  things.  In  their  laws,  mind  has  come  home  to  itself  and  knows 
itself  as  mind.  They  imply  many  worlds  besides  space  and  time, 
worlds  more  concrete,  more  deeply  interwoven  in  experience.  Be- 
cause they  grasp  these  highly  organized  provinces  of  the  real, — 
the  realm  of  values,  the  world  of  sense  transfigured  through  inter- 
pretation,— their  laws  are  in  the  highest  degree  individual  and 
universal.  Sound  and  color,  for  instance,  when  comprehended  as 
the  medium  of  expressiveness,  are  "  as  necessary  and  rational  as 
the  conclusion  of  a  syllogism."32  One  might  indeed  say  their  law 
was  more  necessary  and  rational;  through  them,  as  Hegel  sug- 
gests, mind  has  gone  into  nature  and  knows  itself  in  its  Other. 
In  art  and  in  the  organized  freedom  of  the  state,  mind  and  nature 
are  seen  working  as  one  harmonious  whole;  their  separateness 
overcome,  the  principle  of  their  universality  triumphant.  In  the 
syllogism,  on  the  other  hand, — or  in  a  scientific  law  such  as  the 

32  Principle,  p.  62. 


98    SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

Conservation  of  Energy, — the  form  and  content  of  law  still  re- 
main unreconciled.33  The  mind  does  not  seek  cooperation  with 
the  content,  but  stamps  an  alien  matter  with  its  form.  Since  all 
empirical  cases  falling  under  the  syllogism  can  never  be  tested, 
we  might  doubt  its  universality ;  just  as  we  might  be  led  to  doubt 
the  universality  of  the  Conservation  of  Energy  owing  to  the 
faultiness  of  its  applied  formulations.  But  such  doubt  would  be 
nearly  meaningless  in  regard  to  a  work  of  art  or  with  regard  to 
a  principle  of  the  state.  These  last,  in  so  far  as  they  have  uni- 
versality, carry  it  in  themselves.  Their  rationality  we  recognize 
as  rooted  in  nature  quite  as  much  as  in  conscious  mind.  In  them 
the  reason  in  nature  and  man's  reason  meet  and  are  at  home  with 
each  other.  In  them  law  becomes  at  once  concrete  and  universal. 
Third,  from  the  logical  standpoint,  law  is  an  evolutionary  prin- 
ciple. In  Part  I  of  this  study,  theories  of  evolution  offered  by 
the  psychological  view  were  discussed.  These  sought  to  show 
laws  themselves  to  be  changing  modes  of  the  evolutionary  process. 
Laws  were  construed  as  existential  facts,  rather  than  as  prin- 
ciples. The  source  of  evolution  was  placed  by  all  these  theories 
in  psychological  centres.  These  centres  drew  progress  from 
within  themselves,  but  were  conditioned  in  turn  by  interaction 
with  other  centres  which  formed  their  externality.  The  notion 
of  evolution  offered  a  nebulous  explanation  of  the  history  of  this 
interaction.  Each  thinker  had  his  own  peculiar  evolutionary  cos- 
mology, a  kind  of  fifth  wheel  to  his  system.  Such  theories,  it  was 
suggested,  contained  in  them  no  genuine  evolutionary  principle. 
In  the  last  analysis,  the  psychological  view  is  forced  to  regard  evo- 
lution as  the  result  of  chance.  For  it  follows  Kant  in  believing 
that  the  correspondence  between  phenomena  and  the  laws  of  the 
understanding  always  remains  a  contingent  correspondence.  But 
contingency,  once  admitted  to  a  theory,  is  hard  to  control.  The 
evident  logical  relation  between  these  theories  and  that  of  C.  S. 
Peirce  (psychological  cosmology  in  its  extreme  form)  made  plain 
that  all  such  doctrines  of  evolution  are  based  in  arbitrary  psycho- 
logical spontaneity  and  involve  absolute  chance.  Evolution  that 

33  In  spite  of  abstract  and  imperfect  expression,  however,  these  laws  ex- 
press the  essential  principle  of  determination  by  the  whole. 


CONCLUSION.  99 

springs  from  chance,  the  antithesis  of  law,  is  not  really  evolution. 
The  harmony  of  the  process  may  break  down  at  any  point.  Its 
unfolding,  because  contingent,  can  never  be  taken  without  question. 

On  the  other  hand,  those  holding  the  logical  view  seek  to  prove 
that  law  is  the  genuine  evolutionary  principle  in  historical  devel- 
opment. In  historical  evolution,  law  manifests  itself  on  its  grand- 
est scale.  Because  the  logical  theory  is  interested  in  the  principle 
of  evolution  rather  than  in  the  patch-work  of  detail,  it  avoids  the 
vain  task  of  erecting  cosmological  hypotheses  upon  its  meta- 
physics. Therefore  it  has  not  attempted  to  piece  together  a 
theory  from  the  factual  evidence  and  from  the  variously  accred- 
ited evolutionary  hypotheses  of  the  sciences.  But,  as  philosophy, 
it  seeks  to  interpret  evolution  in  logical  terms  as  the  manifestation 
of  an  ultimate  principle.  This  ultimate  law  or  principle  it  dis- 
covers is  the  concrete  universal.  Accordingly  it  has  left  off 
1  telling  tales '  of  cosmology,  and  has  set  to  comprehend  how  the 
active  universal  reveals  itself  in  the  growth  of  the  universe. 

Law  or  the  evolutionary  principle  is  found  to  be  revealed  not 
merely  to  abstract  thought  as  expressed  in  the  generalized  for- 
mulae of  natural  science,  but  to  any  sympathetic  interpretation 
of  any  bit  of  concrete  experience.  "  We  must  interpret  the  nature 
of  nature,"  says  Bosanquet,  "as  much  by  the  flower  as  by  the 
law  of  gravitation."34  And  by  the  flower,  he  does  not  mean  the 
sum  of  its  *  elements '  laid  up  in  a  laboratory,  but  the  growing, 
appreciated  flower,  enjoyed  as  a  focus  of  the  whole  interactions 
of  nature.  Evolution  is  here  not  studied  as  a  particular  phe- 
nomenon among  phenomena,  having  peculiar  laws  of  its  own, 
or  as  confined  to  a  special  sphere  of  reality  or  to  the  scientific 
point  of  view.  Evolution  is  conceived  after  the  Greek  fashion  as 
synonymous  with  Nature  or  the  whole.  It  is  not  thought  of  as 
an  age-long  process  by  which  the  complex  world  of  created  things 
was  compounded  out  of  original  simple  elements  (e.g.,  from 
psychological  centres).  Rather  evolution,  according  to  this  view, 
means  the  productive  principle  of  the  universe  expressing  itself 
as  the  complete  growth  of  that  universe. 

Only   on   some   such   interpretation   of   evolution,   Bosanquet 

34  Proceedings  of  the  British  Academy,  1905-1906,  p  241. 


I0o   SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

would  say,  does  progress  guarantee  the  nature  of  the  whole  to  be 
a  supreme  value.35  For  it  is  only  by  comprehending  externality 
as  concrete  law  or  value  that  the  nature  of  the  world  is  grasped 
as  Ideological  and  a  supreme  value.  The  fourth  contention, 
then,  is  that  only  on  the  logical  interpretation  of  law  is  the  uni- 
verse understood  as  truly  teleological  and  as  value. 

Earlier  in  this  study,36  an  argument  of  Royce  and  Peirce  was 
noted  incidentally,  which  somewhat  resembles  the  foregoing 
argument  from  values  to  a  teleological  evolution.  Royce  main- 
tained that  the  achievements  of  science  are  too  many  to  be  ac- 
counted for  by  the  laws  of  chance,  hence  it  is  necessary  to  assume 
that  nature  and  man  are  attuned  by  a  teleological  process.  But 
on  the  logic  of  Royce's  system,  a  teleological  law  can  only  mean 
a  conscious  purpose  in  the  mind  of  a  subject.  Though  in  his 
later  work  Royce  refers  less  and  less  to  an  Absolute  conscious- 
ness, yet  consistency  with  his  system  as  a  whole  demands  that  he 
explain  apparently  'unconscious  teleology'  in  nature  as  the  con- 
scious purpose  of  an  Absolute.  Indeed,  for  any  position  that  can 
be  designated  psychological,  all  teleological  process  must  ulti- 
mately be  defined  as  a  plan  in  the  mind  of  a  conscious  subject. 
But  this  study  has  shown  that  any  law  or  process  defined  as  the 
expression  of  a  conscious  subject  outside  the  causal  series  must 
lack  the  true  nature  of  law.  Not  less  does  it  lack  the  true  essence 
of  teleology.  The  conception  of  a  First  Cause  is  no  more  ade- 
quate to  prove  teleology  than  to  prove  law.  Royce's  argument  is 
really  only  a  newer  form  of  the  old  physico-theological  argument 
from  the  evidence  of  design  to  a  designer.  It  points  to  evolution 
as  teleological  only  in  the  sense  that  evolution  must  be  part  of  the 
plan  of  a  designing  consciousness.  Quite  apart  from  the  hazards 
of  the  analogy,  such  an  argument  does  not  prove  that  the  design- 
ing consciousness  is  an  evaluating  consciousness.  The  Absolute 
subject  might  conceivably  look  upon  the  whole  of  evolution  with- 
out any  distinctions  of  estimate  or  perspective.  He  might  see 
quite  equally  "a  hero  perish  and  a  sparrow  fall."  In  other 
words,  a  teleological  view  which  confines  itself  to  proving  sub- 
jective consciousness  ultimate,  gives  no  illumination  whatever  as 

35  Cf.  Bosanquet,  The  Value  and  Destiny  of  the  Individual,  p.  75. 

36  Pt.  I,  Chapter  I,  footnote  50. 


CONCLUSION.  IOI 

regards  real  teleology,  viz.,  values  and  their  distribution  in  the 
universe. 

The  logical  interpretation,  on  the  other  hand,  bases  its  concep- 
tion of  the  real  as  a  teleological  whole  not  upon  conscious  per- 
cipients exclusively,  but  upon  a  view  of  experience  as  a  scale  of 
values.  It  is  because  evolution  presents  us  with  a  world  of  in- 
numerable values  that  we  have  a  right  to  infer  the  universe  to  be 
a  teleological  whole  and  supreme  value.  This  is  the  form  the 
logical  argument  takes.  While  recognizing  that  presence  to  con- 
sciousness must  be  allowed  for  in  any  question  of  teleology  or 
significance  of  the  whole,37  such  a  view  would  refuse  to  define 
either  teleology  or  the  whole  exclusively  in  terms  of  conscious- 
ness. While  acknowledging  presence  to  consciousness  as  a  con- 
stitutive element  of  the  real,  the  logical  view  denies  that  the  real 
can  be  construed  in  terms  of  conscious  processes. 

To  maintain  this  would  be  to  convert  consciousness  from  a  rela- 
tion into  a  substance,  as  may  be  illustrated  by  recalling  how  the 
psychological  position,  based  on  the  psychological  'predica- 
ment,'38 was  inevitably  carried  to  a  metaphysics  of  panpsychism. 
To  make  a  substance  of  consciousness  is  to  regard  all  law,  all 
relations  and  values,  as  derivative  and  contingent  upon  brute 
psychological  fact.  But  to  make  psychological  activity,  mere  con- 
sciousness as  such,  the  First  Cause  of  law  is  to  elevate  to  a  first 
principle  indeterminism,  chance,  the  antithesis  of  law. 

It  is  only  a  logical  interpretation  of  experience  which  is  able 
to  represent  the  real  as  a  teleological,  systematic  whole;  that  is, 
as  a  genuine  universe  of  law.  For  it  is  only  the  logical  view 
which  comprehends  experience  as  an  organization  of  relations 
and  values.  Lawfulness  appears  everywhere  throughout  expe- 
rience: as  fact,  as  necessary  assumption,  as  inner  principle  of 
growth.  It  is  not  true  that  the  teleological  and  the  individual 
exclude  determinate  organization  and  law.  On  the  contrary, 
there  can  be  no  teleology,  no  individuality  where  there  is  no  de- 
terminate relation  between  parts.  When  the  individual  is  taken 
as  excluding  mechanical  intelligibility,  it  is  no  longer  teleological 

37  B.   Bosanquet,  Proceedings  of  the  British  Academy,   1905-1906,  p.   242. 
note  2. 

38  Viz.,  that  what  we  are  conscious  of  is  present  to  consciousness. 


102    SOME  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURAL  LAW. 

(i.e.,  possessed  of  value).  The  law  of  the  universe  is  at  once  an 
expression  of  rational  mechanism  and  of  the  world-plan  imma- 
nent in  the  whole. 

There  are  certain  broad  practical  implications  which  stand  out 
at  the  close  of  the  foregoing  consideration  of  natural  law.  These 
can  be  only  briefly  noted.  But  the  rejection  of  the  psycholog- 
ical view  of  law  implies  the  rejection  of  all  conceptions  which 
seek  to  explain  nature  in  terms  of  one  idea,  set  up  as  a  First 
Cause  outside  the  causal  series  of  phenomena.  We  must  be  on 
our  guard  continually  against  the  fallacy  of  the  First  Cause,  which 
has  by  no  means  passed  out  of  thinking  along  with  a  certain  type 
of  theology.  It  flourishes  today  under  many  disguises.  In  sci- 
ence it  reappears  as  the  tendency  to  raise  some  particular  scien- 
tific concept  to  the  status  of  a  first  principle,  in  terms  of  which 
are  deduced  all  the  wonders  of  creation.  Spencer's  theory  of 
evolution,  for  instance,  furnishes  in  some  ways  as  good  an  ex- 
ample of  the  fallacy  of  First  Cause  as  the  theology  of  an  eight- 
eenth century  deist.  Of  course  instead  of  God,  Spencer  builds 
his  evolutionary  universe  on  the  law  of  Conservation  of  Energy 
as  ultimate  principle.  But,  whether  the  deduction  proceeds  from 
below  upwards  or  from  above  downwards,  any  system  built  on 
the  conception  of  a  First  Cause  inevitably  loses  itself  in  the  tran- 
scendent. The  myth-making  and  dangerous  recrudescence  of 
superstition  in  contemporary  thinking  is  in  great  part  due  to  this 
tendency  to  accept  some  particular  concept  as  that  behind  which 
we  cannot  go,  and  to  terms  of  which  everything  must  be  reduced. 
Such  hypostatization  of  abstracts  and  fanciful  cosmogony  lurk 
within  present-day  Spiritism  and  Panpsychism,  which  make  the 
conative  individual  ultimate,  no  less  than  in  the  philiosophy  based 
on  mechanical  science,  which  takes  the  electron  or  the  Conserva- 
tion of  Energy  for  its  fundamental  term. 

The  criticism  of  the  psychological  view  has  shown  that  internal- 
ity  divorced  from  externality,  mind  divorced  from  matter,  cannot 
be  distinguished  from  pure  chance.  The  earlier  idealism  may  be 
said  to  have  accomplished  successfully  the  refutation  of  ma- 
terialism and  of  abstract  mechanism.  It  was  able  to  show  that 
pure  externality,  or  a  purely  mechanical  nature,  is  no  more  intel- 
ligible than  blind  chance  or  a  cog-wheel  fatalism.  But  internality 


CONCLUSION.  I03 

without  externality  lapses  no  less  into  pure  chance.  Internality 
and  externality  have  their  meaning  through  each  other,  and  none 
outside  their  relation.  Law,  therefore,  can  be  described  neither 
as  a  function  of  pure  mind  nor  of  pure  matter.  It  is  no  more  the 
expression  of  bare  subjective  consciousness  than  of  mere  mate- 
rialistic mechanism.  Law  is  truly  logical  and  universal.  It  must 
not  be  interpreted  as  the  property  of  any  set  of  particulars,  but 
as  the  universal  relation  of  all  the  particulars  taken  together 
as  a  whole. 

Since  mind  and  nature  have  their  meaning  only  through  each 
other,  it  would  be  false  to  reduce  one  to  terms  of  the  other.  This 
criticism  applies  to  the  attempt  of  panpsychical  thinkers  to  reduce 
natural  law  to  mystical  relations  of  persons.  Such  a  theory  is 
against  the  logic  of  our  experience.  The  part  played  by  nature 
in  the  great  bulk  of  our  experiences  is  that  of  a  storehouse  of 
means  or  tools.  Nature  is  the  treasure-trove  that  meets  our  prac- 
tical needs  with  endless  supplies  of  stones  for  building,  coal  for 
burning,  food,  etc.  True,  nature  serves  us  also  as  a  realm  of  ends 
in  so  far  as  we  find  in  nature  what  Bosanquet  calls  the  '  tertiary- 
qualities.'  That  is,  so  far  as  we  gain  from  nature  aesthetic,  reli- 
gious and  social  values,  we  make  it  a  realm  of  ends.  Yet  it  must 
be  noted  that  the  value  of  mountains,  of  forests,  or  the  sea,  in 
this  sense,  depends  not  at  all  upon  our  personifying  them.  A 
mountain  which  we  know  ceases  to  be  a  mere  '  thing/  yet,  on  the 
other  hand,  we  never  mistake  it  for  a  '  person.'  A  large  part  of 
the  comfort  and  inspiration  we  owe  to  nature  seems  to  lie  in  the 
eternal  quality  and  immutability  of  its  element.  Yet  nothing 
could  be  further  removed  than  this  from  the  social  give-and-take 
which  is  generally  predominant  in  our  relations  with  persons. 
At  the  same  time,  this  independence  and  aloofness  of  nature  does 
not  suggest  absence  of  uniformity  and  freedom  from  law. 
Rather  the  immutability  of  nature  suggests  law  and  order  ob- 
jectified ;  perhaps,  indeed,  this  furnishes  us  with  our  deepest  sense 
of  the  value  and  dignity  of  nature  as  a  spectacle.  Only  some 
such  interpretation,  which  leaves  nature  nature  and  forbears  to 
translate  it  into  foreign  terms,  can  measure  up  to  the  test  of  our 
experience  of  nature  and  its  laws. 


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